Institute for Community Research

The Youth Action Research Institute (YARI) of the Institute for Community Research (ICR) in Hartford, CT has summer internships available for graduate students interested in working with and training youth to conduct Participatory Action Research (PAR). YARI uses a PAR model to empower youth to make changes in their communities. Each summer YARI conducts a Summer Youth Research Institute for high school students in Hartford, Connecticut. This summer we are interested in recruiting at least one intern with interest and experience in using Visual Research such as PhotoVoice as a research method.

Goals of the Summer Youth Research Institute are to:

§ Demonstrate to young people the ways research can be used to solve community problems;

§ Teach skills such as problem identification, research methods, computers, and information presentation and dissemination;

§ Demystify the process of research by engaging teens in a project which investigates issues of importance to them, their peers, and their communities;

§ Increase school and community attachment by linking an educational process with a project that invests in the communities of the participants;

§ Create group bonding around positive community participation;

§ Improve community conditions by disseminating and applying the results of research through education and advocacy.

What would you get out of this internship? An opportunity to:

§ Share your research and advocacy expertise with youth in CT;

§ Improve your research skills through exchanging ideas with youth;

§ Build professional relationships with researchers at the Institute for Community Research;

§ Explore future employment and/or thesis topic with researchers involved in research surrounding youth.

Qualifications:

§ Graduate level work in social sciences, health, or related fields;

§ Experience with research methods

§ Experience working with diverse youth populations (including urban and sexual minority youth);

§ Excellent communication and organization skills;

§ Ability to work with a team.

Internships run from June 9, 2008 through August 4, 2008. Stipend: $3,000.

For more information contact Marlene J. Berg (860) 278-2044 ext. 226 (email: marlene.berg@icrweb.org)

Hello!

I am writing to invite faculty and graduate students to participate in a morning workshop on April 17 (Thursday) with Prof. Carroll Parrott Blue, a pioneer of participatory filmmaking and digital storytelling. This workshop is an opportunity for faculty and graduate students who are starting on the path of publicly engaged, visual/digital qualitative research to meet an trailblazer in this emerging field. Prof. Blue will share her reflections on developing multimedia projects in community-based research and creating publicly engaged visual and textual scholarship. The morning workshop will take place in the Center for Research on Families conference room, 622 Tobin Hall, from 9:30 am-12 pm on Thursday, April 17. Brunch will be served. The event is free, co-sponsored by the UMass–Amherst Emerging Methodologies Workgroup and the Center for Research on Families (CRF).

Prof. Blue (University of Houston), will be visiting campus as part of the Massachusetts International Film Festival on April 16, when she will screen her multimedia project, “Black Houston: Digital Storytelling” (7:30pm, 137 Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst). Blue is an award-winning filmmaker, multimedia producer, author and public
artist who blends text, stills, graphics and moving image in traditional and new media formats. Her experimental memoir, “The Dawn at My Back: Memoir of a Black Texas Upbringing,” is a combination book, DVD-ROM, and website. In 2004, Dawn
was selected by the American Library Association as one of the thirty best American Association of University Press publications and Dawn’s DVD-ROM won the 2004 Sundance Film Festival Jury Award in its first-ever New Forms category. In her latest project, Professor Blue and her research team are assembling a “storymap” of an historically black neighborhood in Houston, filming community members’ stories on location and placing them on an interactive map (http://www.storycenter.org/thirdward.html). Prof. Blue’s research and multimedia digital projects are exemplars of “emerging methodologies” in community-based qualitative research.

Participants are strongly encouraged to read/view Prof. Blue’s book/multimedia DVD, “Dawn at my Back.” Copies of the book will be available at the workshop. The book is $60, and proceeds benefit Prof. Blue’s “New Dawn Project,” a community-based research project in Houston’s Third Ward.

Please contact Krista Harper at kharper@anthro.umass.edu to RSVP by Monday, April 14 (space is limited).