MediaWorks is Wide Angle's summer youth workforce development program, in partnership with Baltimore City’s YouthWorks, which provides paid media education experiences. This year I had the opportunity to be one of 57 MediaWorks interns.

MediaWorks Investigates Stigmas and Stereotypes in Media

This summer Wide Angle students chose to focus on the theme of Stigma and Stereotypes in the Media. They analyzed contemporary media, discussed how representations reflect our community, and addressed pervasive and incorrect narratives. Check out some of the student projects below:

Reflections from my peers:

What’s a Stigma or Stereotype in Media that you enjoyed analyzing and why?

“I liked looking into the ones for black people because it was so bizarre to see that black people had so many stereotypes and the ones about women too. It's so sad to see that someone thinks that they know you when they don't, but I'm so glad I learned and now I see.”

-Jordyn Hatchett

What change would you like to see in the media based on the stereotypes and stigmas you discussed?

“More black people behind the scenes of projects, not just directors or producers, but hairstylists and makeup artists as well.”

-De’Shaun Fortune

Build Your Brand initiative - Sankofa Children's Museum of African Cultures

Every summer, Wide Angle gives back through our Build Your Brand initiative by producing free media for local community-focused businesses. This summer we selected Esther Armstrong, or Mama Kiki, the founder of the Sankofa Children's Museum of African Cultures (SCMAC) as our client. The Sankofa Children’s Museum “aims to educate, inspire and connect children from all walks of life to the vast physical and cultural diversity of the African continent.” Mama Kiki came to us with the goal of using design to bring more awareness to the new museum and increase the number of visitors. The design assets that we worked on included social media templates and print collateral. 

This project was inspiring to participate in as I knew with each cohort we would be highlighting an organization that actively educates communities on African culture. Being introduced to Sankofa revealed to me that there is a lot about Africa that I am not acquainted with. I am aware that African culture is widely diverse and historically relevant way beyond slavery or the Civil Rights Movement. However, it was not until I started my design work for Sankofa that I recognized how vital the museum’s existence is to Baltimore and our black communities. 

As a black woman, connecting to the roots of the African diaspora is critical to my growth. In the words of Maya Angelou, “The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are.” It is great to have had the opportunity to work with such a trailblazing museum that is growing everyday with much more recognition to come. 

Working as a team, we designed pieces individually then later united to share feedback as a group. Through these critiques we were able to have a diverse deck of work to share with Mama Kiki. 

Lunch & Learn Series

Another aspect of MediaWorks that I thoroughly enjoyed was our Lunch & Learn segment that we participated in every Thursday. Each week we were greeted with a new guest speaker who took the time to share about their journey as creatives, entrepreneurs, and leaders.

For our first Lunch & Learn segment we met with the one and only Mama Kiki! In this segment we had the opportunity to learn more about SCMAC. Mama KiKi is a US citizen of Ghanaian origin. She is a graduate of the University of Ghana at Legon and has lived and worked in Maryland for over 30 years. Mama Kiki has always held a strong belief in Marcus Garvey's quote, "A people without knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots." She formed SCMAC and assembled a Board of Directors composed of innovative thinkers. They believe that the culturally competent education of our children will result in less crime and a desire for further education. 

Learn about our other guest speakers below:

From each of the speakers’ conversations I left the meeting feeling inspired. The laughs and lessons shared motivated me to continue on my journey with my head held high. I’m sure my peers felt the same as in each session we all had a ton of questions. I appreciate the time these speakers dedicated to reach their success and that they were so kind to share some guidance with us youth. 

It’s been a great experience to work in MediaWorks. I’d like to express my gratitude to the amazing coordinators and instructors of the program! Shoutout to my fellow MediaWorks interns for their hard work and I’d love to see you all again next summer! If you’ve made it this far in the blog, check out the awesome designs we all made this summer here.

Additional student reflections:

Which Lunch & Learn was your favorite and what is something that you learned from that guest speaker?

“I actually have two, one was with Mama Kiki and I learned from her some history about African culture and the museum they had. The next one was with Tristan and what I learned from him was to be yourself and understand the path that you wanna go down and always stick to and prove to your parents that this is the observation you want to do.”

- Christian Clay

How would you describe your time in MediaWorks? 

“​​My time in MediaWorks was very productive and informative about design. My instructor Dan is really knowledgeable in his field and passed on a lot of it to us. It was also great to design for Sankofa, as well as learning more about them.”

- Sydney Smith

MEET THE AUTHOR

Lacee is a student at the University of Baltimore pursuing her bachelor's degree in Psychology. Lacee began as an intern with Wide Angle through Urban Alliance. She found great interest in media-making after working on various projects from design to photography to video. She has developed life plans, workforce readiness skills, and design projects for clients such as Baltimore Mediation Center and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her content writing and creation skills have developed tremendously. She’s developed multiple informative posts for Wide Angle’s social media platforms, highlighting Black August, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, National Coming Out Day, and more.