N’KOSI founder, Sia Tiambi Barnes was hired as one of the Teaching Artists participating in the 2010 Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) Media Arts Camp. The Camp is a pilot program funded by the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities (DCCAH) and the Department of Employment Services (DOES), to encourage District youth to explore career paths in the creative economy, of which the District’s Media & Communications industry makes up 43 percent and a single job averages $94,000/year in salary. The District is the nation’s leading market for Marketing Communications jobs (the overarching category). Sia is guiding a team of young writers in journalism workshops to help create the August issue of the Art(202) Journal.
“It is an honor to work with the Commission to help pioneer such a program,” Sia said. “Especially in this climate when, like many industries, journalism is forced to redefine itself within the confines of a recession restricted budget, it is important to offer the incoming generation insight into how valuable story-telling is to the evolution of a community. For the participants to be gainfully employed as part of the learning experience gives allowance for creativity to flourish in an environment where arts programs are otherwise some of the first to be cut.”
Other components of the program included youth placement in paid internships at national media companies like BET, NPR, and City Paper; and “Project Anacostia,” an examination of how business and the arts converge to create community using the historic District neighborhood as a case study. By the end of the summer the participants, who are also working in photography, graphic design, videography, radio, and event planning, are tasked with developing mini-documentaries, a radio magazine composed of oral histories, and the District’s first “green wall” – a sustainable mural – in addition to the Journal. The deliverables are scheduled to all be on display on Friday, August 13th at The Corcoran Community Gallery at THEARC.
