VOICES OF YOUTH Battle Creek — We are seeking interested youth writers living in Calhoun County who would like to pursue an issue of interest and be published with the help of professional mentor. This is a paid opportunity! Please share. If you are interested, please contact Theresa Coty O’Neil, Managing Editor, at editor@swmichigan.secondwavemedia.com
What is Voices of Youth?
A journalism project that lifts youth voices and is focused on community issues that are important to youth.
Do you have a curiosity for learning new things?
Do you like to write?
Would you like to be published?
Are you looking for a way to share about an important issue and a place to showcase your artistic talent?
If you have an interest in learning why journalism is important to affecting change, sign up now to participate.
Writers Needed
There are opportunities to help write a long-form feature article. Writers will learn through the program how to shape these stories with support in research, interviews, and writing.
The topics we are addressing will be of importance to them. There will be opportunities for youth to take on roles in creating photography and artwork supporting stories in these topic areas.
All stories are approached through a solutions journalism approach and reported with an eye toward ways the issues are related to structural and ongoing systemic racism.
MENTORS
You will not be working on this project alone! Each topic will have its own Writing Mentor and Art/Photography Mentor. The lead instructor is J.R. Reynolds, a professional writer from Battle Creek.
COMPENSATION
Participants will be paid $100 for attending all three workshops with an additional $150 for published projects.
PLATFORMS
Stories and digital images will be published online on the Second Wave Media website.
For an example of previous work that has been published, click here and here.
We will also explore opportunities to showcase the work through other platforms or events.
Issue Media Group (IMG) is the parent company of Southwest Michigan’s Second Wave. IMG publishes weekly online magazines leveraging the power of solutions-based and narrative journalism. Our publications aim to connect readers to their city’s most visionary and active people, businesses, and organizations. We work with like-minded stakeholders who have shared values and missions through an underwriting model of publishing.
Our journalists engage the community through regular editorial advisories, events, and conversations to build trusted relationships with leaders and residents that shape the community’s unique stories. The company was incorporated in Detroit in 2005.
FUNDING:
The Battle Creek Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Community Foundation, and the BINDA Foundation underwrite this program.
If you have questions, please contact editor@swmichigan.secondwavemedia.com
With thoughtfulness and artistry, a Battle Creek teen explores the impact of societal expectations. This multi-media project incorporates both artwork and poetry to consider essential questions related to cultural norms around topics of race, gender, class, beauty standards, and more.
“When it comes to gun violence and violence in general, there are still going to be people out there who want to hurt others," says Marshall Murdick, a senior, who is helping launch a Battle Creek Central H.S. chapter of Students Against Violence Everywhere (SAVE) Promise Club. "We want to make sure our classmates are O.K. and at least have one friend out there so they will do better in life.”
Voices of Youth Battle Creek artist and writer Kayanna Smith is a Lakeview High School budding clothes designer and journalist. She wanted to research what sort of impact easily-ordered, affordable 'fast fashion' has on the environment – and what might be some alternatives. She also wanted to express the concept through design. So out of packaging materials, she created a fashionable Plastic Patchwork Packing Dress. Check it out!
Stigma and cost are two main reasons young people don't reach out for the mental health support they might need. Battle Creek siblings Logan Stevens, 17, and Kai Stevens, 15, were inspired to collaborate on an art and writing project that encourages their peers to find the type of therapy that suits them as an impactful form of self-care.
Battle Creek Voices of Youth Artist Athena McCarthy focused her artist's lens directly on anxiety, creating digital artwork that personified her feelings. In her accompanying artist statements, she shares about the empowering process. Athena says, "There are ways to help with anxiety and to help those with anxiety, simply by being there for each other."
Voices of Youth Battle Creek participants, Elisha Willis and Cordell Barnes, listen to a lot of podcasts and wanted to try one of their own. They decided to focus on social media and its impact on teen mental health. In this conversational format, Elisha and Cordell, with their mentor Gerald King, touch on negative and positive impacts of social media and how to keep it all real. Listen to the CnE Podcast to get the real scoop on social media and teens today.
Southwest Michigan Second Wave is thrilled to launch its third cohort of stories from Voices of Youth Battle Creek, a student-paid journalism-training program. Over the next four weeks, we will be publishing the students' passionate stories and artwork that reflect on issues that matter most to them. Read on to learn more.
The pandemic's long-term shutdowns may be over, we all hope, but there's been some collateral impact among adolescents who were forced into isolation at one of the most social times of their high school lives. Voices of Youth writer Lauren Davis, a senior at Lakeview High School, speaks with peers and experts about these lingering effects and what can be done to help.
Since its November launch, ChatGPT has created a stir of controversy. Some local teachers and students can see both its benefits and drawbacks. One Lakeview High School senior says she can see how the AI tool could help with generating essay ideas, but as far as using it in place of her own writing, she says, “It would create an interesting perspective, but it would never be your own work."
As part of our Voices of Youth Battle Creek series, On the Ground Project Editor Jane Parikh speaks with Lilyana Collins, a seventh grade artist who is one of many area young artists featured in the annual Art Center of Battle Creek's "Class Act." Second Wave photographer Taylor Scamehorn captured the proud artists with their creations at the show's opening on March 19.
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