PAST PROGRAMS

FINDING HOME

YOUTH FX

COLLABORATION

2019

“Youth FX is designed to empower young people ages 10-25 by teaching them the technical and creative aspects of digital film making and media production. Based in the City of Albany, NY, our primary mission is to work with diverse groups of youth from communities that have been historically under-served and in need of opportunities to learn filmmaking and acquire skills in emerging media technologies. Youth FX hands-on programming develops leadership skills, creativity, and critical thinking, through the collaborative and artistic process of making films, amplifying the voices of young people in the capital region of New York State and around the world.”

What did a teenager escaping the juggles of Burma have in common with a teenager fleeing Iraq in fear of political reprisals? What do teenagers leaving Mexico and Haiti both for family economic survival have in common with African American teenagers who are stopped by police on the block where they live and questioned about stealing groceries they just bought for their Mom?

All were students in Albany High School’s after school Social Justice Theatre program. In 2016 the students wrote, developed and performed a play entitled Which Way Home that told their person and family journeys to find a place of home, a place of peace in Albany, New York.

Arts, Letters and Numbers was invited to collaborate with the Theatre Program to witness the students in the telling of their stories and to design a single stage set that would be used for this production along with seven other student-written and performed plays as part of an annual festival. After the festival, ALN hosted the Albany students at the Mill and with Youth FX, a local non-profit film arts program, they filmed and produced a dramatization of students’ stories.

The Social Justice Theatre Director, Noelle Gentile, explained, “The purpose of the piece is to highlight the transformative power of listening to one another, hearing each other’s stories and discovering the bonds that unify us. The piece aims to empower all those involved and those who witness it as audience members.”

Other collaborators in this project included the National Coalition Building Institute who facilitated coalition building and story telling activities with the students that formed the basis for the script for Which Way Home.