beyond@beyondmedia.org

www.twitter.com/BeyondmediaEdu

http://vimeo.com/channels/beyondmedia, http://www.ChainofChange.com/ http://www.WomenandPrison.org/ http://www.CondomSenseEducation.org/

Contact Tara Malik, tara@beyondmedia.org or call 773-857-7300

We work primarily with middle school and high school age youth from lower-income communities across Chicago, who are diverse in all aspects of their identity, including race, ethnicity, immigrant status, sexuality and physical and mental ability. We have worked on the following topics: youth and gender-based violence, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women and youth, disability Rights, HIV and comprehensive sex education, LGBTQ youth, sexual exploitation

Beyondmedia teaches video, photography, audio and Internet and viral social networking skills in our workshops and programs.

We teach media production, visual literacy and media literacy. Participants learn to critique mass medias’ representations of themselves and their communities. Through this work, participants become active media makers instead of passive media consumers.All of our programs are inquiry based and follow the approach of participatory education, where we use media arts and technology as a tool for exploring human rights and social justice issues.

The following outcomes result from Beyondmedia’s programs and partnerships: • Broadcast ready videos • Multi-media installations • Websites • Community screenings facilitated by youth • And youth organizing, networking and mobilizing around issues

• Ron Sable Award for Activism from Crossroads Fund • Illinois Humanities Council’s Lawrence W. Towner Grant Award for Imaginative use of the humanities, Women in Prison • Doin It: Sex, Disability and Videotape Best Short Documentary by San Francisco Women’s Film Festival Best Documentary by Central Illinois Feminist Film Festival • Turning a Corner Best Documentary: Public Awareness- Professional by Hometown Video Awards Best Documentary Midwest at Beloit International Film Festival Best Documentary in the John A McDermott Film Competition • A Fish Almost Eaten by a Shark Chicago Youth Media Festival Winner • SUPERFEST International Disability Film Festival’s Spirit Award & Achievement Award for Beyond Disability: The Fe Fe Stories • Why They Gotta Do Me Like That? The Empowered Fe Fes Take on Bullying Honorable Mention at Picture This… Film Festival in Calgary, Canada RECENT SUCCESSES • HIV: Hey, It’s Viral! Video approved for use by Chicago Public Schools

We partner with an extensive number of Chicago Public Schools, Illinois-based universities and colleges, local community-based organizations and juvenile detention centers.

Q’d In Media The mission of Q’d In Media is to support queer and allied youth organizing and community building, combat homophobia in the many communities where queer youth live, learn and struggle, and make the real and complicated lives of queer youth visible to a larger public. A consistent goal and strategy throughout all Q’d In Media projects is to apply media education in innovative ways to effectively address documented problems of special concern to partnering organizations. Girls! Action! Media! Girls! Action! Media! workshops create a safe space for young women to talk about issues of concern and develop as community activists while learning important media, arts and technology skills. We partner with programs for under-served girls and young women, equipping them to use technology and media creatively to examine and ultimately transform their lives and their communities. Women and Prison Through Beyondmedia’s Women and Prison program, incarcerated women and girls, former prisoners and their families use media arts to voice their stories, promoting public dialogue, healing and community organizing. Since 1997, Beyondmedia has collaborated extensively with women and girls in prison and after their incarceration to create interdisciplinary, multimedia educational forums on women and prison. Teach Beyondmedia Teach Beyondmedia is a series of media education workshops and in-class instruction sessions that bring urgently needed media and technology training to teachers in under-resourced Chicago Public Schools. The workshops enable teachers to enhance their existing curricula, engage more effectively with their students, and introduce media arts into their classrooms with confidence and creativity. (If there is any other information you would like to include such as Donors or sponsors, special initiatives, etc. please feel free to include) Beyondmedia Education Funders Beyondmedia is generously funded by the Arts Work Fund for Organizational Development, Beth Emet Synagogue Tzedakah Fund, Chicago Foundation for Women, Chicago Instructional Technology Foundation, Crossroads Fund, Cultural Outreach Program of the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Early to Bed, Funding Exchange, Illinois Humanities Council, Leo S. Guthman Fund, McCormick Foundation, MAC AIDS Fund, Elizabeth Morse Charitable Trust, Polk Bros. Foundation, Rainbow Endowment, Sahara Enterprises, Inc., Sparkplug Foundation, and the Weitz Funds. This project is partially supported by a CityArts Program 2 grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency and is made possible in part by a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the IL General Assembly. Special Initiative: Chain of Change The Chain of Change project organizes youth activists to individually and collectively strategize how to end violence by exposing its roots through the creation of media. Beyondmedia distributes video cameras to youth groups, who create short videos that challenge individuals to think about their own roles in this struggle. The youth authored videos are posted to www.chainofchange.com, a platform to facilitate discussions about the violence involving and affecting youth. This networking site strengthens the bonds between participants from diverse and distant communities and raises awareness to the various forms of violence youth face. Now in its second year, the Chain of Change project is led by a Youth Leadership Council, which determines the next steps and direction of the project. For more information or to get involved in the project, contact Tara, tara@beyondmedia.org or call 773-857-7300.

Beyondmedia offers teachers an opportunity to incorporate media into their current class curricula in our program, Teach Beyondmedia and comprehensive sex education teacher trainings using our video, HIV: Hey, It’s Viral! and its accompanying sex education workbook.