Lyn Pentecost, founder of The Lower Eastside Girls Club, says her project has been a learning experience for students and teachers alike, “It has encouraged us to look deeply at what communications and digital literacy programs have to offer teens, and the girls are ‘wowing’ our local community with their talents.”
The project has hit a few stumbling blocks along the way. They had equipment problems. And training problems. And training on equipment problems. Original interviews got erased or never recorded because of human error. So, they wound up ditching their cheap consumer digital recorders in favor of professional machines at four times the price. They made a new rule that all audio must be transferred immediately off the portable machines so it wouldn’t get lost. Plus, the crew decided they needed some basic training in recording technique, conducting a solid interview and using digital editing software.
Loisaida Speaks also faced professional staffing challenges, but had success with interns and volunteers. Says Pentecost, interns from NYU were required to fulfill a certain number of hours a week and had chosen to be with us. These extremely talented people helped us move the project forward. In particular, a Daily News reporter came in every Friday and sometimes Saturday to work with and mentor one of our young reporters.”
Pentecost says the best idea she implemented was non-traditional staffing.
“In the end, we decided to invest in training two of our own Cascading Leadership program girls, a high school and a college student. This was done ‘on the job’ as they set up their own interview show: Q&A with R&A (Renee and Amber).”
Amber, still in high school, will work part-time running the podlab after-school programs and Renee will work full time, taking over the blogging classes and helping make sure the site has weekly photos, graphics or video.
While Loisaida has struggled, there is much to be proud of. This summer, the club’s photography teacher led the girls in a multimedia documentary project about Coney Island, which included audio interviews and a small sound/slide show posted on the site.
“While community journalism is our goal, it was hard to find the time to take girls out there, on the streets, after school and on weekends,” says Pentecost, “so our productions this year for Girls On Air took place in our own living room.” The group began podcasting two of its well-attended weekly programs: “Girls Night Out,” a Friday night inspirational speaker series and “Saturday at la Tiendita,” a performance series showcasing local women singers musicians and poets.
In mid-September 2007 they launched a newly designed main Girls Club site, a central portal for each of the program websites, separate sites for blogs and podcasts, and Girls Club Worldwide, a site for online international exchanges. Program updates and new shows will appear on the front page along with a media showcase window that will be updated frequently. “For a busy little organization, it has been quite a feat to manage this massive information reorganization,” says Pentecost.
Also this fall, all girls in the program will complete a short media technology literacy course, blog, create QuickTime movies, and join the citizen journalism team by becoming a school or neighborhood correspondent. Special weekend workshops will be held throughout the year to introduce the girls to interactive programs and websites such as Second Life, Google Earth, cool non-violent games designed by women through the NYU ITP program and more. “We are exploring ways to block MySpace, Facebook and their proxy sites and to provide volunteer guides in the computer lab to help girls explore other interests during ‘drop-in’ open lab time,” says Pentecost.
Many other partnerships for growth are in the works, including:
- A guest blogger column by successful women.
- Community mapping project with Google Earth NYC.
- Live streaming from the Howl Festival, a two day community cultural event in a partnership with FEVA – The Federation of East Village Artists.
- Recruitment of more volunteer mentors with journalism or writing backgrounds.
Other successes of note: The Girls Club has also recruited a web developer to its board of directors. An anonymous contributor donated $100,000 to our capital campaign earmarked for a radio station (groundbreaking spring 2008). In May 2007, the Rubin Foundation gave a $15,000 grant to cover equipment upgrades including six new iMacs and a new digital recorder for the journalism lab.
But the real success is the girls who are finding a voice in this project. Says, Pentecost, “Amber is planning to apply to college as a journalism major and Renee, our filmmaking major, is exploring short-form documentary and online venues for her work. As we define new media as our priority, many more girls will become proficient and follow these interests into college.”
