Brighter Worlds / CVTYM is a new program, offered in partnership by AS220 and IZOLYATSIA, empowering youth in Rhode Island, and young people displaced by the conflict in Ukraine, to envision a bold, new world through creative expression through methods utilizing and including blog posts, graphic design, infographics, podcasts, and videos. Check out what they got up to in Week 1, and stay tuned for more updates!

Our first meeting, one word: HYPED! Today, the students of As220: CVTYM met the instructors at AS220 Media Arts. This group of kids was so chill that we had to double up our winter jackets. We couldn’t have asked for a better team! Everyone was open, engaged, and stoked to share their stories. along with their hopes for what we can accomplish in this program. The quote above comes from a student named Max, during our “getting to know us” exercise.

After a tour of the AS220 Industries, we sat down briefly to say hello, and share what caught and ears during the tour. We fell into a conversation on what brought us here.  “I think racism and violence is something people our age should be talking about regularly and i wanted a place to do that.”  said one student. What was great about this short meeting is we quickly found out that we can all have a great conversation as a group.

The next phase of the day is when we really started to get to know each other, as well as some of the equipment in the AS220 Media Lab. Students and instructors paired off to film interviews of each other, switching roles between subject and journalist. The students were tasked with developing questions that would help us learn more about the people in our newly assembled CVTYM team. Each of us put our journalist hats on, partnered up, and developed a short set of interview questions for each other, along with one “wild card”, to be picked from a hat at random.

It was remarkable how easily each student took to both being on camera and directing questions off.

After lunch, we took time to pause and have a conversation about our Ukrainian colleges. Elisa, our Research Instructor, walked us through a brief history and culture package that was sent to us by our friends at IZOLYATSIA!

Stay tuned for Week #2!