Community Storytelling

The 2020 Community Voices grant will support the production of a collection of youth stories called “Voices from the Quarantine”. The book will contain more than 30 chapters of student writing about topics such as their experiences during COVID-19 and reflections on the racial justice movements occurring in Philadelphia.

The 2020 Community Voices grant will support the creation of additional opportunities and support for community-based artists, activists, and scholars through Bulletin, a collaborative, web-based editorial platform for critically reading and reimagining public monuments through stories of social justice.

The 2020 Community Voices Fund grant will support a “Spiral Q Community Cohort” using storytelling, art and artmaking toward collective justice and liberation through their participation in the Art for Action Pipeline and the Peoplehood Parade & Pageant in 2020 and 2021. Cohort members will amplify their own communities' stories and messaging, build community beyond their group with a wider demographic striving for justice, and educate themselves in new techniques and practices integral to social justice movements.

The 2020 Community Voices grant will support a series of online and youth-driven programming throughout the 2020-2021 school year. Youth Set The Stage will build a strong network of organizations working in youth media throughout Philadelphia, regularly engage youth media content creators and provide platforms to showcase and present the voices and current perspectives of these Philadelphia youth, creating an audiovisual capsule of the current moment. In the process of the year-long cross-collaborations, YSTS will build an accessible toolkit for instructors working with students remotely.

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.