The Below Radar Video Education (BRAVE) Project was created in 2002 by a collective of Oakland educators, videographers and media artists. BRAVE is a non-profit project fiscally sponsored by East Side Arts Alliance. Our collective's mission is fourfold:

1. To seed a new generation of videographers and educators committed to community-building and social justice in Oakland.
2. To help youth/young adults develop critical thinking and life skills that ensure healthy mental and spiritual growth.
3. To teach youth/young adults technical skills that will increase their chances of employment in the video production, education and social service fields.
4. To find local jobs for youth/young adults in the areas of video production and education.

BRAVE PROGRAMS

The BRAVE Project consists of two courses: Youth Teacher Training and Community Video Production.

The Youth Teacher Training course trains neighborhood youth (ages 15-21) to co-teach community-themed video and mixed-media art classes in Oakland public afterschool programs (to ages 12-18). Our goal is to have deep and long-lasting relationships with several Oakland middle and high schools, and be able to grow with and nurture our youth teachers in these environments. The curricula for each afterschool program is customized according to each school's educational goals and technical capacity, and is co-developed by BRAVE teachers, school staff and students.

The Community Video Production course trains youth members of local community organizations to video-document their organizational campaigns and produce videos that have strategic benefit to those organizations. Our goal here is to create a media support network of young videographers throughout Oakland dedicated to community building, leadership and advocacy in their neighborhoods.

In both programs youth create videos that promote social issue discussions in after school workshops, school and neighborhood youth symposiums, as well as the greater Oakland community through television distribution. Topics in the past have included identity development, cultural pride, the public school crisis, violence, immigration, youth incarceration, and youth empowerment.

RECENT WORK

Since Below Radar's inception, we have worked in the Eastlake/San Antonio neighborhood on projects that promote the goals of our mission.

Our 2002-2003 efforts include coordinating a youth TV show on KDOL called ÒBeats, Flows and Videos Television.Ó Below Radar staff trained 10 post-high school youth in producing ongoing shows that deal with issues such as the war in Iraq, the OUSD state takeover, and high school student activism. The production of future shows is being incorporated as part of BRAVE's current program.

We also worked with San Francisco State University's Urban Arts program and Eastside Arts Alliance's Visual Element program for 3 months to train 20 East Oakland high school youth in creating professional video portfolios for their graffiti artwork. Two of these students have gone on to become BRAVE Youth Teachers, and have lead taught at various workshops, the most recent being a national youth summit at UC Berkeley.

Also in 2002-2003, Below Radar worked with Oakland Peace Camp, a two-week summer arts camp of 40+ students, where we ran a video curriculum that incorporated discussions on violence in East Oakland. In 2004 one of our Youth Teachers became a lead teacher for the camp.

For the past two years we have collaborated with KQED television on several youth video projects that were aired nationally. One example project was called ÒMatters of Race.Ó Here we trained 12 high school youth in creating short videos about race issues in East Oakland. These videos were aired for a month on KQED, and our youth facilitated two symposiums attended by over 100 Oakland youth and adults.

Our efforts have resulted in strong ties to various East Oakland schools and youth empowerment organizations. We are developing our relationships to create an alternative media education and distribution network between these entities. For the 2004-2005 school year we are collaborating with the following organizations and schools: Urban Promise Academy, Melrose Leadership Academy, ASCEND, MetWest High School, Youth Empowerment School, East Bay Asian Youth Center, Youth Together, Asian Youth Promoting Advocacy and Leadership, Youth Media Council, Beats Flows and Videos, Performance Workshop and Visual Element.