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, marketing, and entertainment.  Participants have the opportunity to work along side students from various cultures and social economic backgrounds, express themselves in innovative, challenging ways and understand their role and responsibility as contributing adults to society.True Star Magazine True Star is a free magazine created and produced by teens.  Through paid afterschool apprenticeship programs, teens learn to develop, write and edit content, produce graphic design layouts, sell advertisements, execute events and market the publication.True Star Magazine’s Editorial MissionTrue Star Magazine’s editorial mission is to inform, entertain, educate and serve as the voice of urban youth in which they address everyday issues through life experiences and critical thinking.

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 up 587 posts and readers have posted 247 comments in 23 issue categories.  The site has logged 23,000 visits and a total of 105,297 hits.  The Newspaper stands apart from typical community newspapers in that a majority of its content is written by novice, and freelance writers from the North Lawndale community about positive productive solutions that helps improve the quality of life.

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 have been to: Create and deliver high quality experiential learning opportunities that enable Latino youth to competencies and life skills to pursue careers of their choice, particularly journalism and media; Build a strong national network of Spanish language youth media creators; Support Latino youth as they become resources to the larger community through their involvement in media and civic engagement

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 tolerance and remove barriers to transform their lives and society.

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 youth address community issues, access advanced communication technology and gain inclusion in our information-based society.

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 media in Chicago.

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 of inner city families rely on Residents’ Journal to counter stereotypes of their communities and provide them with critical information about housing, policy changes and other coverage unavailable in the mainstream media. We The People Media operates the Urban Youth International Journalism Program, a media skills training program for Chicago youths, a World Wide Web site, wethepeoplemedia.org, and broadcasts “Residents’ Journal TV” over the Cable Access Network. In addition to its own media outlets, We The People Media is a critical source of information about public housing and the housing needs of low-income communities for opinion-makers including the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Sun-Times and National Public Radio as well as researchers at Columbia University and the Urban Institute.

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 of the neighborhoods in which youth participants live and work. CTVN programs instill in youth the awareness, motivation, and tools they need to create positive futures for themselves and their neighborhoods.

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 equip women and youth to document and communicate their stories, serve as educators and role models for others, influence public policy, and generate social transformation.

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 communities.