POPPYN Summer 2011!

This summer UCCP’s home-grown news show POPPYN (Presenting Our Perspective on Philly Youth News) welcomed a new cohort of young members to its team, representing many Philadelphia neighborhoods and schools: Kensington/ Kensington Culinary Academy, Olney/ Science Leadership Academy, Center City/ Mastery Charter School, South Philly/ Horace Furness High School, North Philly/ Tacony Academy, Brewerytown/ Constitution High. Students were trained by UCCP’s veteran V-Media producers Saeed Briscoe and Taesha White on media production and literacy, with support of Temple University intern Lynsey Graeff.

The new crew learned the mission of POPPYN and what it takes to produce an episode by jumping right into the process, assuming the jobs of researchers, anchors, reporters, camera people and editors in the production of POPPYN #5! Episode 5 focused on food in Philadelphia, highlighting the efforts of youth-led urban nutrition and gardening programs like Urban Nutrition Initiative and Teens 4 Good. Also featured were interviews and facts about teens’ favorite foods, a deconstruction of ethnic food stereotypes and a report from a National youth-run community-agriculture conference called Rooted in Community. You can see all these stories as well as more creative interpretations of the theme on POPPYN’s website: http://whatspoppyn.blogspot.com

Additionaly, four of the young POPPYN crew member had an opportunity to participate in the National Association for Media Literacy Education conference this July in Philadelphia. Our participants worked with youth from all over the country as part of the M3 (Modern Media Makers) camp, dedicating over 48 hours of their weekend to collaborative production of 5 short genre-specific film pieces that creatively interpret the definition of media literacy. See their amazing, hilarious and inspired work at the NAMLE M3 blog: http://namle.net/2011/08/18/modern-media-makers-m3-archive-project-philly-2011/

A big thank you to Mosi Blaylock, a UCCP Leaders Corps member who accompanied and supported the youth at M3 through the entire camp.