The Media Center is about to begin a powerful collaboration with For Youth By Youth (FYBY), an agency dedicated to youth and to violence prevention in East Palo Alto. Five video profiles will be produced, featuring the stories of persons who have dealt with the tragic impact of violence in their lives, and have managed to forge a positive, peaceful pathway in its wake. Each profile will be produced by a three-person youth team to be trained by Media Center staff. The full FYBY youth community - 300 strong - will view and discuss the profiles and then there will be an opportunity for the creation of several spoken word and music pieces to be recorded in response to the profiles. Lastly, there will be two community events that will feature the video works along with a town-meeting-style discussion about violence prevention. The East Palo Alto police department will also participate in the community discussion events. All of the video profiles and arts responses will be available on the two organizations' web sites and will play on the cable community TV channels.

This project is made possible by support from the Cable Co-op Legacy Fund, the Palo Alto Community Fund, the Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund, and one private donor. The project will begin just after Labor Day and the community events will take place in April and early May, 2010.