North Omaha Media Alliance sponsors youth media literacy

The North Omaha Media Alliance is holding the second annual youth media project at the UNO to sponsor activities focused on promoting positive messages of North Omaha. The alliance helps youth participants understand how to use tools of the media to record images, create dialogues and use the messages to show its viewers another perspective of North Omaha.

NOMA is directed by Lynnette Leonard, assistant professor at UNO's School of Communication. Leonard spoke of the project's goal as providing a platform for youth to learn about the media and develop a sense of service.

"The project is focused on the students' involvement," Leonard said. "It's the topics they choose and want to talk about."

The project has two goals of learning and service, each with a different focus.

Through learning, students become critical thinkers about the media and the world around them, produce awareness and understand media literacy as it applies to becoming an active consumer.

Through service, the students aim to help change the view of North Omaha and present stories of a more positive outlook. Leonard said they learn to address problems and find plausible solutions to some issues they face in that community.

The NOMA students' ages range from 14 to 18 years old. The participants attend Omaha Public High Schools from Benson, Central, North and Northwest and plan to meet eight times to work on their projects. These ideas range from last year's presidential election, drop out rates of high school students, teen pregnancy, safe sex, needs for afterschool programs, drug use and violence among teens, scholarships and relationships.

Another goal of the project is to help students realize that continued learning is an option through college. This is most evident through the mentor-based partnerships NOMA has developed with youth from Girls, Inc. and UNO Communication students from the Advanced Broadcasting Journalism class taught by UNO associate professor Chris Allen.

This option for service learning and mentorship was not provided for last year's project, making this year a great progress from the previous.

The goal of this class participating with NOMA is to provide a relationship between the two groups of students. The young can teach the undergraduates a different perspective of the city while the undergraduates can show how to navigate through the college atmosphere and apply their knowledge of media, as well.

Some benefits the students hope to come away with are picking up practical skills in research and being able to relate those topics to a larger population, Allen said.

"There is an appreciation in knowing they can do things to impact their community," he said. "It wakes them up to possibility to do this further in life."

Allen and Leonard both say they are very impressed with the NOMA students' dedication with the project.

The students were so involved during their last session that they didn't eat right away, but were focused on getting involved with their projects, Leonard said.

The sessions for this project run each Thursday through the month of May. Currently, the students broadcast their projects through blogs and videos.

The projects can be found at thenomablog.blogspot.com and youtube.com/TheNomanetwork

Students weren't the only ones to receive benefits; the directors also enjoyed themselves.

"I feel energized when I work with them," Leonard said. "They are resilient and intelligent and I love seeing what they do. They create hope for the future.