HARKEN! Youth Media Program

GIVING YOUTH A VOICE

The purpose of the HARKEN! Youth Media Program is to nurture critical thinking, creativity, and leadership skills while teaching documentary filmmaking. In East Los Angeles, an environment where 50% of Latino students do not graduate from high school, Harken Productions saw the possibility of using Dramatic Improvisation and Documentary Filmmaking to empower these underserved, gang-affiliated and frustrated youth. We teach them to master their environment by learning storytelling, drama, and technical skills associated with camera work, interviewing, and editing. Out of this experience HARKEN! Youth Media Program was born.

We take a media literacy approach with the content of our productions. Media Literacy is the ability to interpret and create personal meaning from the hundreds, even thousands of verbal and visual symbols we take in through TV, radio, computers, newspapers, magazines, and advertising. In learning these skill sets, students also develop strong social and life skills such as organizational abilities, leadership, team participation, commitment, accountability and the overall responsibility for producing an excellent product for which they can be very proud.
In addition, we take a "social justice/social science" approach to our films. This means that content for the films comes from the life experiences of the students which provides a relevant arena for our filmmaking and also motivates the students to question, articulate, discuss and produce stories that deal with issues relevant to them and the communities they live in. And besides... ...it's just a whole lot of high action fun!	Soledad Enrichment Action, East Los Angeles, CA, 2002-2004
Rhode Island Training School & AS220's Broad Street Studios, Providence, RI 2005	“The HARKEN! Youth Media Program has a proven model of 12 and 16 week training programs available for school districts, teacher trainings, and summer programming. Customized programs are also available. In the fall of 2007 HARKEN! Youth Media Program will be setting up shop in the newly renovated Dreyfus building in downtown Providence, RI. Come and visit us at 95 Mathewson St. room 208!” Office: 401 274-1110 • Cell: 401 477-4630 or email for more information on the HARKEN! Youth Media Program.

Quotes and Testimonials:

"…Our population of students face many struggles in their lives and communities from poverty to gang violence. Michelle has enabled our students to address these struggles giving them voice through filmmaking. Michelle's compassion matched with technical and creative abilities has enabled our students to grow in innumerable ways socially, technically, and critically. Given the population we serve this has been an invaluable tool for their ongoing growth toward becoming contributing members of society."
Martin Bautista, Program Coordinator, Soledad Enrichment Action,
Los Angeles, CA

Michelle ..."has brought a profound level of understanding of the economic, social, academic and emotional struggles that our students face to her work through filmmaking. Each video she has produced with our students has yielded a level of skill sets, critical thinking and media literacy that has exposed our youth to new options in further study and life."
Sr. Elisa Martinez, Co-Executive Director, Soledad Enrichment Action, Los Angeles, CA