Since 1991, Global Action Project (G.A.P.) has provided creative media-arts programming for underserved youth ages 14-21 throughout New York City. Our mission is to work with youth most affected by injustice and build their leadership, knowledge and skill sets so that they can create powerful media and become advocates for social justice in their communities. The New York State Council on the Arts deemed us a “primary institution,” honoring our unparalleled cultural contribution to the state and in 2010, G.A.P. was honored with the prestigious National Arts and Humanities Youth Program (NAHYP) Award, presented by First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House, which was followed by a Proclamation from the New York City Council.
G.A.P.’s core initiative, the Urban Voices Media Arts program, directly serves young New Yorkers every year with distinctive after-school projects. To date, G.A.P.’s youth media-makers have created over 175 video projects on topics such as LGBTQ youth homelessness, school bullying, and the experiences of undocumented immigrant youth navigating the complexities of living and learning in New York City.
In 2014, with ongoing support from Variety the Children’s Charity of New York, G.A.P. ran five programs that trained and developed the leadership of 90 youth. Programs included; Youth Breaking Borders (YBB) which engaged immigrant youth from over 10 different countries, including Sudan, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, Guyana, Ivory Coast, Panama, Russia, Trinidad and Brazil–through extensive storytelling and creative production training to produce a short film about immigrant rights; SupaFriends (SF), where LGBTQ youth learned media production and media-literacy skills in the context of researching and created an original episode in a web series on LGBTQ rights; Media History Timeline Project (MHT) which gave youth an opportunity to learn web interaction design and new software as they collectively worked to develop an online resource for young people, organizers and educators exploring the relationships between media, justice, policy, and popular culture; Youth Facilitator Initiative (YFI) our advanced youth leadership program that trains youth in facilitation and advance media analysis. Community Media in Action (CMIA), where G.A.P. staff & youth facilitated a two month media arts intensive training institute for eighteen youth organizers, hailing from seven community organizations across the city including: Adelante Alliance, DRUM, Girls for Gender Equity, Make the Road, New York State Youth Leadership Council, Streetwise and Safe, and UPROSE.
We held our annual End of Year Screening on June 17, 2014 at the New School Auditorium in partnership with the School of Media Studies at the New School University. Over 200 youth, family members and friends, allies, funders and community members attended the event which showcased five new youth-produced films, works from the Media History Timeline project, original poetry, music, mixed media and dance performances from our amazing youth participants and organizational partners.
G.A.P. is very appreciative of Variety the Children’s Charity of New York’s support over the last few years and it’s help in allowing us to continue to expand our work in creative and meaningful ways. We look forward to continuing our close partnership with Variety moving forward in 2015!