Chicago Youth Voices Network

True Star Magazine

True Star Foundation is a nonprofit organization that provides a creative outlet in the form of literary and professional development programs for youth.  Our mission is to demonstrate healthy transitions for youth coming into early adulthood by exposing them to real world experiences in the work force through the arts, particularly in publishing, [...]

North Lawndale Community News

NLCCN encourages citizen journalism from the mostly African-American residents of one of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods. The blog covers community tensions, concerns over gentrification and other local issues through print, audio and photos. It is linked to the biweekly North Lawndale Community News which has been publishing since 1999. The blog has put [...]

Radio Arte

Radio Arte, 90.5 WRTE-FM, is a Latino-owned, bilingual, youth-driven public radio station that works to advance the voices of our multi-layered society. Radio Arte does this by promoting socially conscious journalism, providing media-literacy training; and creating programming that showcases music, issues, and events that are not featured prominently by mainstream media. Our guiding principals [...]

Young Chicago Authors

Young Chicago Authors encourages self-expression and literacy through creative writing, performance and publication. YCA provides student-centered, artist-led workshops free to youth ages 13-19 in schools and communities. Our process emphasizes artistic development, mentorship, and creating safe spaces where a young person’s life matters. We believe that through their words, young people can promote [...]

Street-Level Youth Media

Street-Level Youth Media educates Chicago’s urban youth in media arts and emerging technologies for use in self-expression, communication, and social change. Street-Level’s programs build critical thinking skills for young people who have been historically neglected by public policy makers and mass media. Using video and audio production, computer art and the Internet, Street-Level’s [...]

Columbia Links

Columbia Links is a journalism skills-building and leadership development program for youth and teachers in Chicago Public Schools, housed at Columbia College Chicago. Through workshops, mentoring, and the creation of youth-produced publications, Links works to build expertise, relationships, skills and opportunities that connect students, teachers and volunteers through journalism, in the process revitalizing youth [...]

We the People Media

We The People Media is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to empowering public housing residents and other low-income Chicagoans. We The People Media publishes Residents’ Journal, a 13-year-old, national-award-winning magazine written for and by public housing tenants and distributed free of charge to 40,000 low-income households in the metropolitan area. Hundreds of thousands [...]

Community Television Network

Community TV Network (CTVN) empowers low-income young adults and children in Chicago by engaging them in the creative and collaborative process of digital video production. Harnessing this dynamic process and the resulting media content, CTVN promotes positive youth and community development with the overall goal of raising the educational success and economic viability [...]

Beyondmedia Education

Beyondmedia Education’s mission is to collaborate with under-served and under-represented women, youth and communities to tell their stories, connect their stories to the world around us, and organize for social justice through the creation and distribution of media arts. We envision a compassionate and just society where universal access to media tools and information [...]

Open Youth Networks

Open Youth Networks is a program of the Department of Interactive Arts and Media at Columbia College. The program is designed to help bridge the digital participation gap by educating girls and urban youth to use emerging technologies, games and social media so they can make a better future for themselves and their [...]

Free Spirit Media

Free Spirit Media partners with schools and organizations to provide education, access, and opportunity in media production to under-served urban youth. Through hands-on production of their own media content, participants build life skills in communication, critical and independent thinking, teamwork, and the use of technology. Believing that youth perspectives are a critical element [...]