In June 2006, WKCD joined other U.S.-based youth media organizations in a multi-year international initiative called Adobe Youth Voices (AYV), sponsored by Adobe Systems Incorporated. AYV helps youth worldwide “create with purpose,” using the latest media and technology. In the first year of the initiative, WKCD teamed with youth and educators in New York City, San Francisco and San Jose, Seattle, London, Delhi, and Bangalore to produce a rich array of multimedia and book projects. In 2007-2008, WKCD collaborated with youth in Beijing, Hungary, Prague (Czech Republic) and Beijing.
In 2008-2009 WKCD produced a photo book of the best photographs taken by youth worldwide as part of the first two years of Adobe Youth Voices. We also sponsored an international photo competition and created a book made up of the winning photographs and artist statements. Finally, we produced a mini-curriculum for teachers that draws upon this rich image bank to teach students about seeing across cultures.
BOOKS AND CURRICULUM
 |
Crisis and Hope: Youth Turn a Lens on The World (Next Generation Press, 2010) See flip book. Written in Chinese or Japanese, the word “crisis” consists of two characters: one representing crisis or danger, the other representing hope or opportunity. In the spring of 2009, WKCD invited youth worldwide to show us, through their own eyes, what troubles them and gives them hope in their close-by world—whether a deeply etched slum in East Africa or a well-off suburb in the northwestern United States. Across four continents and sixteen countries, young people responded to our call by sending their photos and captions—crisp, light, dark. This volume gathers their acute perspectives into a compelling whole. |
 |
India in a Time of Globalization: A Photo Essay by Indian Youth (Next Generation Press, 2008) See flip book.
"How do you make the camera snap?” asked 14-year-old Prakash. Over the next several months, Prakash and his classmates in Bangalore, along with youth in New Delhi and Noida, took close to 5,000 photographs capturing daily life around them. They also gathered over 50 interviews. India in a Time of Globalization—part of Adobe Youth Voices—provides a unique window into the push and pull Indians face as their country becomes a global power. |
 |
Fresh Takes on a Flat World: Youth Photos from Around the World (Next Generation Press, 2009) See flip book.
“I never knew how much you can say with an image,” says Seattle youth photographer Yvonne. Fresh Takes on a Flat World brings together a rich sample of the photographic art created by youth worldwide as part of WKCD’s partnership with Adobe Youth Voices. The collection has three thematic sections, mingling and juxtaposing photographs by students in far-flung sites and circumstances. Seeing in different ways, making our own connections, we all may discover something new, as the youth did who made these photographs. |
YOUTH-PRODUCED MEDIA, COMMENTARY, BLOGS
Beijing, China
In Beijing, WKCD worked with a team of six students, from several middle and high schools across the cities, to create weekly blogs that featured commentary, photographs, and video and audio clips about issues close to these Beijing youth. The students’ blogs appeared in Chinese on the Chinese blog site, baidu.com. In the U.S., selections of their blogs appeaedr in English at http://beijingyouthvoices.wordpress.com/.
In anticipation of the Beijing Olympics, the “Beijing Youth Voices” team also produced a collection of audio slideshows. Click here for this inside look at the Beijing Olympics—and more.
Budapest, Hungary
In Hungary, we partnered with the Foundation for Democratic Youth (DIA), an NGO headquartered in Budapest that conducts a range of youth programs across Hungary. Our focus was helping youth involved in DIA’s nationwide service-learning initiative document their work and community service activities. In Hungary, as in most of Eastern Europe, the notions of volunteerism and social responsibility died during the Soviet Era. Rekindling this social spirit among a new generation of Hungarians is one of DIA’s main goals. Click here to read more and see the work.
Cluj Napoca, Romania
In Romania, we teamed up with the NGO Resource Center for Roma Communities in Cluj Napoca. The United Nations declared the first decade of the 21st century “The Decade of Roma Inclusion,” looking to diminish the discrimination and cultural conflict that has kept the Roma population in Romania and across Europe on the margins of society. Our work in Cluj, the urban center of Transylvania, supported a growing group of Roma (gypsy) youth in documenting their city and its culture through the creation of audio slideshows and a touring photo exhibit. Click here to read more and see the work.
India: Bangalore, New Delhi, Noida
In India, we carried out three distinct projects. In Bangalore, we teamed up with a group of 12-14 year olds to capture a "day in the life" in three very different settings: Bangalore's largest public market, a public park, and the neighborhood where the students lived—one of Bangalore's poorest. In New Delhi, youth leaders in the Bal Panchayat program of Plan International-India took cameras to the slum neighborhoods they know intimately, putting a human face to their passionate campaign for children’s rights in India. Students at Noida Public Senior Secondary School spent the year gathering photographs and interviews that showed the contrasts globalization now produces at every turn in India: between old and new, Eastern and Western, rich and poor, traditional and progressive, multinational and local. Click here to read more and see the work.
London
As immigrants with few chances to travel outside their working-class neighborhoods, the six eleven- and twelve-year-olds on the AYV photography team at Lilian Baylis School toured their city with wide eyes. For three days, these pre-teens fanned out across London, snapping photos in four different parts of the city: the “hard working” mixed class neighborhood that surrounds their school, Westminster, Jubilee Gardens, and Clapham Junction (a busy, multi-ethnic community). Nothing escaped these young photographers. Click here to read more and see the work.
Prague, Czech Republic
In Prague, WKCD partnered with the Multicultural Centre Prague on its “Cultures Around the Block” project, a flagship program of The European Year of Intercultural Dialogue 2008. The project brought together young people from diverse ethnic groups across Prague and, through workshops where they documented their surroundings with various mediums, facilitated intercultural dialogue. Here we present photographs youth took as part of “Cultures Around the Block.” WKCD also supported a photo exhibit that traveled to several European cities, ending in Brussels at the culminating “Dialogue of Cultures” festival. Click here to read more and see the work.
