Since 2000, Global Kids' Online Leadership Program, led by Barry Joseph, has been adapting our successful youth development model to the internet, creating new opportunities for bringing civic engagement, global awareness and leadership development to youth around the world through online game, online dialogues, and social actions.
Playing 4 Keeps is an innovative youth media project, in which a team of Global Kids Leaders at South Shore High School are gaining leadership and game design skills that they will use to develop and produce a socially conscious online game each year. Once produced, the game will have the potential to educate thousands of young people about a critical global issue. The program is a collaboration with the award-winning online game design company gameLab (gmlb.com), and the GK Leaders at South Shore will work closely with gameLab's experts to produce their game... [read more]
In collaboration with the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Global Kids has launched Newz Crew, which combines Global Kids' unique, interactive approach to public policy education, youth leadership and online learning with NewsHour's media content to stimulate rich online dialogues involving youth in the United States and around the world. Students from Canarsie High School were integral in creating Newz Crewand met in weekly after-school leadership training workshops and activities to hone leadership and digital literacy skills and to help shape the Newz Crew project. Read [ more about it ] or just [ check it out ]!
Global Kids Island: Fostering Public Diplomacy Through Second Life will be a comprehensive youth development program in which teenagers will participate in online activities in the virtual world Second Life to develop their understanding of global issues, commitment to civic participation, and leadership skills. Specifically, the program will build on Global Kids' presence in the virtual world Teen Second Life, where it has established an "island," into which it is integrating the approach and methodology of its Power of Citizenry Leadership Program. These online activities will be combined with an intensive after school leadership program where youth will learn about public diplomacy issues and digital media production and how to translate their online learning into real world social action and cross-cultural dialogue. Global Kids island most recently hosted a digital media essay contest, supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and a series of summer workshops designed to educate Teen Second Life residents about the role of the U.S. in the world. Photos will be available shortly on our Second Life blog or watch a short video.
Global Kids seeks to improve the content by and for youth online by translating youth development and global education strategies to the Internet, giving youth a safe place to have fun, interact with peers, learn about the critical domesting and global issues around them, and create strategies that address them.
The Online Leadership Projects has launched several projects applying the priciples of youth development to the field of new media:
Games For Change
Global Kids played a founding role in the non-profit special interest group, called Games For Change, of the Serious Games Initiative. Games For Change brings together non-profits and their partners to explore the use of digital games to advance organizational mission and societal change. Global Kids continues to play a key role on the steering committee, on the annual conference and on the bi-monthly salon series. As a result of this and related work on games, Global Kids has been asked to present at the annual Serious Games Summit, the Games For Change Conference, the Educational Arcade conference, and the Virtual World Summit.Your Voice, Your Schools
For two weeks in February, 2005, Global Kids ran an online dialogue, based on the Youth Circle model, for all citizens of New York City to comment on how education should be improved in NYC. The dialogues were consider an online public hearing by the Committee on the Campaign for Fiscal Equity and will be evaluated, along with eight in-person hearings, for a final report. There were 197 group members, 201 dialogue posts, plus an additional 165 "Lend Your Voice" stand-alone messages. The site receives 4,200 visitors from 1,400 unique IP addresses. A165-page final report was delivered from GK to CCFE. The public report from CCFE is expected in the summer of 2005.Beyond the Fire
Global Kids' staff and youth served as consultants to the web site Beyond the Fire, a web documentary that features the stories of war-affected youth. Beyond the Fire won "Best Educational Resource" at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin last week and was also one of 5 projects selected for the New Frontiers category in the Sundance Online Film Festival.Digital Divide Activist Project
The Digital Divide Activist Project examines the impact of the Digital Divide on communities of color and youth in New York City public schools. At Canarsie High School, a team of fifteen students are being educated in leadership, analytical skills, digital literacy, and understanding the digital divide as a global human rights issue. The youth in this program will create a social action project to educate their peers and community about the digital divide while advocating for technology access and skill training. This project expands upon the findings from a survey, implemented in 2001 by a dozen Global Kids students, that assessed the digital literacy of more than 500 peers. The final report, [ Surfing Alone: Lessons From the Global Kids' Digital Divide Survey ], was released in November, 2002. [ read more ]Global Kids Youth Run Nationwide Online Dialogue About Everything After 9.11
During the sixth-month anniversary of the September 11th attacks, GK youth kicked-off an innovative project that invited teens nationwide to engage in a unique online dialogue about its impact on their lives. This exciting month-long project, Everything After: A 9-11 Youth Circle (E.A.9.11), was supported by an unprecedented collaboration amongst youth-oriented Web sites, including PBS Online and YouthNOISE, mobilizing youth across the Web to come together and interact within the E.A.9.11 Youth Circles. Learn more about E.A.9.11 or just go straight to the site.Global Kids in South Africa at the World Conference Against Racism
The summer of 2001 took two Global Kids leaders to South Africa for the U.N. World Conference Against Racism. Each day they produced video and text diaries, in collaboration with the Youth Channel of Manhattan Neighborhood Networks, which were hosted on PBS Online. View the videos and read their diaries.Croatia2000
This self-contained site was developed with the youth who visited Croatia for three weeks in the Fall of 2000. It was built with the youth and is composed of material developed for or during the trip.
These online projects target the constituency largely left out of the Internet revolution: youth from politically and economically marginalized communities. Global Kids' primary constituency is comprised of teens who attend New York City public high schools in underserved communities. These youth require new opportunities and online content that addresses the issues and concerns that affect their lives. They need the chance to experience the Internet as a place for self-improvement, as a place for connecting with others in a meaningful way, and as a place to work with others to take action around an important social issue.
The overall goals of the Raising Voices program are to:
On May 13, 2004, two of Canarsie High School's GK Leadership programs - Undesirable Elements and the Human Rights Activist Project - held a showcase to show off their work. The principle, Dr. Shapiro, and State Senator John Sampson both addressed the crowd of nearly 200. After Undesirable Elements performance, HRAP unveiled their two murals about sexual health and education. View photos of the big event!