Capital Ideas: YR Media at the White House
YR Media – an award-winning leading media, technology, and music training center and platform for emerging BIPOC journalists, designers and music producers– is extremely proud to have participated in a recent White House policy summit, “Cultivating Possibilities.” Through this initiative, the Biden-Harris Administration granted youth organizations from all over the country the opportunity to weigh in on systems and policy shifts that will help all young people thrive. Please read the full White House announcement HERE.
Over 200 attendees gathered on Feb. 13, 2024, including nearly 90 youth. This included two YR Media correspondents, who joined their peers and engaged key systems leaders within youth serving agencies/organizations across education, housing, juvenile justice, justice, employment, health, and security. YR Media national contributors, 19-year-old Cherie Animashaun and 23-year-old Ariyana Griffin, interviewed both Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra live, which you can read about in Griffin’s subsequent article summarizing the session HERE.
Leading up to this powerful convening, YR Media also shot, produced and edited a video featuring young people between the ages of 14 and 24, sharing which policies most impact their wellbeing. The video was aired as part of the summit, showcasing YR Media’s mission and model at work, and highlighting examples of solutions put forth by our next-generation leaders.
Thank you to our YR stars and staff (listed below) who represented our award-winning nonprofit at the nation’s capital and/or appeared in our video. Senior Video Producer Chaz Hubbard, a talented member of the YR Media staff who co-leads our video efforts, attended alongside Animashaun and Griffin.
The U.S. Department of Education plans to continue the conversation, stating in the release: “In an effort to continue hearing from and being informed by young people, within the next six months, the U.S. Department of Education will reconvene these youth participants and federal agencies virtually, sustaining the two-way dialogue that began at the summit.”
We are extremely grateful to Funders For Adolescent Science Translation (FAST) for connecting us to this opportunity and also making it possible for our YR stars to travel to Washington D.C.
The full list of those who appeared in our segment is below.
On-Camera Contributors:
Ariyana Griffin
Cherie Animashaun
Jason Sanford
Ashleigh Ewald
Tyuanna Williams
Emmie Wolf-Dubin
Shriya Dharmapurikar
Noumaan Faiz
Zariyah Yapah Allen
Ivelisse Diaz
