Haiti and the DR are facing times that are both challenging and full of potential. Hispaniola Youth Rise is a proposed project of Global Potential (GP) building on its current mission to empower youth and communities to energize each other through education, international service, cultural exchange, and the use of documentary and social media. This project aims specifically at unifying Haitian and Dominican youth through media capacity building.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Cite Soleil, Terre Froide, Dominican Bateys
Describe the specific community with whom you will be working.
Underrepresented youth living in rural villages of the DR and Haiti that are undocumented and uneducated but resourceful, energetic, and proud. For many of these communities, access to technology and the Internet is hard to come by because of a lack of economic means and/or youth literally having to travel far for this access.
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
There are many stories of there being an unsustainable distribution of resources often without any representation from those most impacted in a region needing to overcome a history of oppression, poverty. and global segregation. Participants of this project will be empowered to choose issues social and economic injustice that they want exposed to the world, such as statelessness, deforestation, border corruption, colonialism, racism, etc.
What technologies and digital tools do you plan to use in the trainings?
Describe the connections that you or your organization have already established that will contribute to the success of the project.
Since 2008, GP has been facilitating the development of an international network of youth living in underrepresented communities in Nicaragua, Haiti, and the DR with which GP partners. This has been done in conjunction to GP working with local youth in New York, Boston, and Paris over the course of a 10.5 month program providing leadership training to become leaders in their local communities. These youth travel to Haiti, DR, Nica in the summer.
How many participants do you think will be involved in your project?
Locally in New York City, Boston, and France, we are currently working with 40 youth, 25 of whom will travel to Haiti this summer for 6.5 weeks. We also work with a council of 25 youth in the DR and another 25 youth in Haiti that represent GP internationally in our partner communities. Media training will take place in both the DR and Haiti this summer, which will culminate in a exhibition of their produced media at a youth conference.
Besides the microgrant funding, what other resources and support are you seeking for your project to ensure its success?
In addition to the monetary resources as per this grant, as a grantee Global Potential will benefit from an opportunity to share the experience and work of these underrepresented youth with those in the Global Voice community, further building networks and a vehicle for further capacity building.
Contact name
Peter Maugeri
Organization
Global Potential