The Mississippi Youth Media Project (YMP) develops leadership and workplace skills in young people by bringing a diverse group of teenagers together in their own dynamic newsroom in downtown Jackson to produce and publish their own stories in a compelling narrative style. They learn to use rigorous multimedia journalism to report on other young people, their own communities, and the causes of problems and potential equity-based solutions to inspire their audience and larger community to take meaningful action. They publish all their work at jxnpulse.com.
The goals of YMP are to:
- Create a more accurate and healthier narrative about young people in Jackson and their families
- Equip and teach young people to use rigorous, narrative journalism to identify and report disparities, causes and solutions in their communities
- Deepen commitment to young people through racial healing, equity and inclusion through story and public events
- Be a model for other media to produce more accurate coverage of young people rather than distorted, biased depictions
- Expand YMP’s role in creating an academic and emotional support system that helps reduce school dropouts and increase youth engagement
- Assess and align opportunities that provide innovative, culturally relevant workplace-skills and technology training to more effectively prepare students for college and career opportunities
- Continue convening and leading community dialogues about potential solutions to youth violence and other urgent local issues
YMP students learn career technical skills in arts, audio/video technology, and communications. YMP highlights careers in those fields as a tool to engage students in hands-on experiences to develop professional, entrepreneurial, and leadership skills, including critical thinking, decision-making, collaboration, project management and completion, effective communication, and problem solving.
Websites:
About the project: www.youthmediaproject.com
Student journalism: www.jxnpulse.com