The Young Lords, also known as the Young Lords Organization (YLO) or Young Lords Party (YLP), was a Chicago-based street gang that became a civil and human rights organization. The group aims to fight for neighborhood empowerment and self-determination for Puerto Rico, Latinos, and colonized people. Tactics used by the Young Lords include mass education, canvassing, community programs, occupations, and direct confrontation. The Young Lords became targets of the United States FBI's COINTELPRO program.
National Louis University (NLU) is a private nonprofit university with its main campus in Chicago, Illinois. NLU enrolls undergraduate and graduate students in more than 60 programs across its four colleges. It has locations throughout the Chicago metropolitan area as well as a regional campus in Tampa, Florida, where it serves students from 13 counties in that state’s central region.
Participatory video (PV) is a form of participatory media in which a group or community creates their own film. The idea behind this is that making a video is easy and accessible, and is a great way of bringing people together to explore issues, voice concerns or simply to be creative and tell stories. It is therefore primarily about process, though high quality and accessible films (products) can be created using these methods if that is a desired outcome. This process can be very empowering, enabling a group or community to take their own action to solve their own problems, and also to communicate their needs and ideas to decision-makers and/or other groups and communities. As such, PV can be a highly effective tool to engage and mobilise marginalised people, and to help them to implement their own forms of sustainable development based on local needs.
El Sistema is a publicly financed, voluntary sector, music-education program, founded in Venezuela in 1975 by Venezuelan educator, musician, and activist José Antonio Abreu. It later adopted the motto "Music for Social Change." El Sistema-inspired programs provide what the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies describes as "free classical music education that promotes human opportunity and development for impoverished children." El Sistema has inspired similar programmes in more than 60 other countries. By 2015, according to official figures, El Sistema included more than 400 music centers and 700,000 young musicians. The original program in Venezuela involves four after-school hours of musical training and rehearsal each week, plus additional work on the weekends.
Out On Screen is an LGBT-oriented arts organization based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It began as a small, community-based film festival in 1988 and was registered as a BC society in 1989, in anticipation of the 1990 Gay Games. Since then, Out On Screen has evolved to become a professional arts organization with two key program initiatives: the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, the annual queer film festival in Vancouver, and Out In Schools, a province-wide educational program aimed primarily at high school students, but with program delivery across the education system, that employs film and video to address homophobia, transphobia, and bullying.
The Chicago Sinfonietta is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is nationally and internationally acclaimed as a cultural leader and a powerful advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion and is renowned for its groundbreaking, dynamic programming and versatility.
Mary Morten, a lifelong activist in Chicago, has dedicated her voice to advocate for marginalized communities. Morten was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 1996. Morten served as the first African-American president of the Chicago chapter of the National Organization for Women, is an author and filmmaker on African-American lesbian experiences, and has led organizations such as the Chicago Abortion Fund and Chicago Foundation for Women. Of note, Morten directed the City of Chicago's Advisory Council on Gay and Lesbian issues in 1996.
The Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) is a non-profit arts organization based in New York City, founded in 2001 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff following the September 11 attacks as a means to revitalize the arts community in lower Manhattan. TFI launched its first program in 2002, the Tribeca Film Festival.
Ben Caldwell (1945) is a Los Angeles-based arts educator and independent filmmaker.
The Rogers Park Young Women's Action Team (YWAT) was a group of primarily African-American high school females in Chicago who took action on social issues. They started out as a group of high school females working to end street harassment. Their primary mission was "to end violence against women and girls" and to "empower women to take action on issues that affect their lives." They primarily advocated for low-income women of color under 21 years of age. The group disbanded after completing its final project in 2011.
Project NIA is an American advocacy organization that supports youth in trouble with the law as well as those victimized by violence and crime, through community-based alternatives as opposed to formal legal proceedings. The organization was founded in 2009 by activist and educator Mariame Kaba, with the project aiming to end juvenile incarceration. NIA comes from a Swahili word for "with purpose".
Sports-based youth development or SBYD is a theory and practice model for direct youth service. Grounded in youth development, sports psychology, and youth sports practice, SBYD aims to use the sport experience to contribute to positive youth development. Sports-based youth development is similar to sport for social development.
Youth in Brazil includes Brazilians aged 15 to 24 or 33, depending on the definition of youth. Youth account for 16.5% of the population in Brazil which is, 202,656,788 people. There are 16,993,708 male youth and 16,521,057 female youth in Brazil.
Elle-Máijá Apiniskim Tailfeathers is a Blackfoot and Sámi filmmaker, actor, and producer from the Kainai First Nation in Canada. She has won several accolades for her film work, including multiple Canadian Screen Awards.
Ayoka "Ayo" Chenzira is an independent African-American producer, film director, television director, animator, writer, experimental filmmaker, and transmedia storyteller. She is the first African American woman animator and one of a handful of Black experimental filmmakers working since the late 1970s. She has earned international acclaim for her experimental, documentary, animation, and cross-genre filmmaking productions. Her work, as well as her efforts as one of the first African American woman film educators, have led some in the press to describe her as a media activist for social justice and challenging stereotype representations of African Americans in the mainstream media.
The School Project is an independent cross-platform media project. It explores what a healthy public education system looks like through the lens of Chicago Public Schools. It focuses on issues including standardized testing, charter schools, privatization, and school closings. It is a collaboration between Kartemquin Films, Siskel/Jacobs Productions, Free Spirit Media, Kindling Group, Media Process Group, and several freelancers. Its media partners include Catalyst Chicago, Chicago Sun-Times, and WTTW/Channel 11.
Mariame Kaba is an American activist, grassroots organizer, and educator who advocates for the abolition of the prison industrial complex, including all police. She is the author of We Do This 'Til We Free Us (2021). The Mariame Kaba Papers are held by the Chicago Public Library Special Collections.
The Federal Women's Film Program (FWFP) was created in 1980 by the Canadian government as a partnership of federal ministries and agencies purposed to create and distribute films about the status of women. Studio D handled the administration of it in both French and English. Its creation was an attempt to address the “swelling demand for women-centered films and filmmaking opportunities". however many female freelancers became increasingly frustrated with the dozen staff members employed by Studio D who had the privilege of permanent positions. In 1987, the program was revived by executive producer Rina Fraticelli and was charged with “producing shorter, basic information films dealing with issues of immediate concern to Canadian women, including domestic violence, reproductive choice, career choice, health care, and aging.”
LuckyChap Entertainment is an American production company based in Los Angeles, founded in 2014 by Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley, Josey McNamara and Sophia Kerr. The company describes their focal point as female-focused film and television productions.
Rebuild Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to transforming buildings and neighborhoods in South Side Chicago, sustaining cultural development as well as celebrating art. The Rebuild Foundation was founded in 2009 by Theaster Gates, a social practice installation artist. The Foundation is currently composed of seven projects.
