Malwin Davila
Jim Farnham
Kia Levey
Joshua Michtom
Gabriel Plotkin
Dorothy Robinson
Homer Robinson
Fahd Vahidy
Jim Farnham
Kia Levey
Joshua Michtom
Gabriel Plotkin
Dorothy Robinson
Homer Robinson
Fahd Vahidy
Youth Rights Media is a New Haven-based nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering youth to know, protect and advance their rights. YRM builds youth power and leadership by engaging young people in video media production and community organizing, equipping them with tools, skills, and strategies for affecting change within themselves and their communities.
In the late 1990s, Connecticut witnessed multiple fatal police shootings of young people of color, the grave consequences of the prevailing youth-police relationships were made painfully clear. At the same time, Connecticut was gradually becoming a national leader on an equally disturbing front: its spending on incarceration, the racial disproportionately in its juvenile and criminal justice system, and the percentage of youth incarcerated in adult facilities.
In the summer of 2000, Yale Law students teamed up to develop a youth rights education program that used video as a teaching tool, and they trained New Haven teens to facilitate workshops about young people’s rights in encounters with police. A couple years later, in 2002, Youth Rights Media was born.
As YRM evolved, our work moved beyond sharing information about the law of rights to focus on empowering youth to understand – and challenge – the politics of rights and the power structures that make rights work differently for different groups of people. YRM believes in the power and potential of all young people, and our programs creates space for youth to express and analyze their realities and builds platforms for youth to get their voices heard.
Since incorporating in 2002, has worked with hundreds of young people whose media productions, workshops, and community change events have reached thousands of community members in New Haven and across the state of Connecticut. Our youth media-makers’ video projects have won national recognition and distribution in film festivals, and their organizing campaigns have generated tangible, visible reforms in the Connecticut juvenile justice system and the local education system.
In the summer of 2000, Yale Law students teamed up to develop a youth rights education program that used video as a teaching tool, and they trained New Haven teens to facilitate workshops about young people’s rights in encounters with police. A couple years later, in 2002, Youth Rights Media was born.
As YRM evolved, our work moved beyond sharing information about the law of rights to focus on empowering youth to understand – and challenge – the politics of rights and the power structures that make rights work differently for different groups of people. YRM believes in the power and potential of all young people, and our programs creates space for youth to express and analyze their realities and builds platforms for youth to get their voices heard.
Since incorporating in 2002, has worked with hundreds of young people whose media productions, workshops, and community change events have reached thousands of community members in New Haven and across the state of Connecticut. Our youth media-makers’ video projects have won national recognition and distribution in film festivals, and their organizing campaigns have generated tangible, visible reforms in the Connecticut juvenile justice system and the local education system.