Community Storytelling

The 2020 Community Voices grant will support “Report from the Future” a project to convene artists, designers, and community members to ask, “What does a Philadelphia look like that's designed for me?” Facilitated and curated by an “Afrofuturist-in-Residence” at The Village, the resulting multimedia responses will serve as reference points, learning aids, and lodestars for policymakers and stakeholders working to rebuild Philadelphia in the wake of COVID-19 and local and national uprisings for racial justice.

The 2020 Community Voices grant will support Project Engage, an internet radio programming targeting community violence, mental health, education, and civic engagement in Chester, Pennsylvania and surrounding communities.

The Heaux History Project (HHP) will use the 2020 Community Voices grant to gather the stories and histories of Black and Brown sex workers and how they are surviving through COVID-19. HHP will collect oral interviews, writings, and artistic representations, with a long term-goal to create a documentary and archival project.

Via the 2020 Community Voice grant, PhillyCAM will offer a virtual Latinx Multimedia Reporting Fellowship in Fall 2020 to train 12 Latinx producers in multimedia reporting skills and build stronger bridges for content distribution and collaborative production among the expanding network of new initiatives supporting and amplifying local Latinx stories and information. During the Fellowship participants will work in teams to produce stories for distribution on PhillyCAM television, radio, online and on other local Spanish language platforms. The opportunity will be available to emerging journalists and community media producers looking to sharpen their skills or explore a new medium.

House of Lux will use the 2020 Community Voices grant to create audio and video projects about Black memory and tradition in North Philadelphia. These videos and audio will be published and made available for public viewing.