Activists:
12
Facilitators:
During
the first four sessions of this project, activists were engaged
in a variety of activities and technology was a part of each
activity session. Activists used the Internet to retrieve
images of Charlestown; they did art; they went on field trip;
they took digital photos on this field trip; they learned
about the UN Convention for the Rights of Children; they created
a "commercial" about youth rights and the facilitators used
a video camera to tape the activists. It was a public service
commercial for other youth to raise their awareness about
the rights they have.
In Session
Four activists were asked to reflect on what they had done
thus far in YAN and then propose an idea for a community project
that they could design, lead, and implement by mid-December.
The Director of YAN specifically asked the activists to decide
on a project that would make Charlestown a “better”
place. It was decided on such discussion that the kids would
make a Children's Rights Poster.
Session Five
began by posting a sign on the wall that explicitly outlined
three understanding goals for the day. The sign read "Today
We Will":
1. Review What We Have Done Thus Far in YAN
2. Discuss our Final
Project
3. Gather Information for Final Project
Visual cues
were put on a table to help the activists remember and also
dialogue about what they had done thus far in YAN project.The
visual cues included posters the activists had made from the
first session (images of Charlestown); photos from their field
trip, and a copy of the UN Convention for Children's Rights
on the table and the video of the commercial. They were told
that that they would be creating an information resource to
share with other youth in their community and the purpose
of the resource they would be creating was to raise awareness
among other youth about 1) youth rights and 2) the services
that are available in Charlestown to help them exercise their
rights.
The next goal
of Session Five was for the activists to find information
regarding the resources available to them in Charlestown that
relate to their various rights for the poster production.
For example, for the right to education, learners retrieved
the address for the local library, and for their right to
protection, they found phone numbers for police station and
child abuse hotline. For the right to voice their opinion,
they found the email addresses of members of the Charlestown
Youth Council. The facilitators provided the learners with
the print-based “Charlestown Neighborhood Guide”
(created by Charlestown Neighborhood Network), phone books,
and access to the Internet to find this information. This
was followed by a debriefing session with the activists and
the facilitators.
In the final
Session Six, activists made choices about how they would represent,
in drawings for the poster, images of the rights they wanted
to convey to their youth audience (depicting images of the
right to education, the right to voice an opinion, the right
to protection etc). They also made choices about how to organize
the layout of their poster. This process required them to
think about their audience and the message they wanted to
convey. They had to problem-solve as they made strategic choices
about where they would distribute their poster around Charlestown.
The activists participated in distributing copies of the flyer
to the local health clinic, the library, and to some local
businesses around town. For example, the owners of the local
pizza restaurant agreed to distribute copies of the poster
with the pizzas they sold.
To see commercials created by the activists, click
here.
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Activist holding the Child's Rights Flyer