ChARTing Change is a multi-faceted arts based initiative that highlights the vital role the arts can play in envisioning and enacting brighter and more socially just futures. Showcasing the stories, visions, and perspectives of marginalized youth, ChARTing Change enables directly impacted youth to see themselves reflected in the school curriculum. It also helps ALL students enhance their capacities to identify and challenge the various forms of discrimination that exist both within and outside of BC’s school communities.
Video-based storytelling is a key component of the ChARTing Change program. As such, it began with a small cohort of Black, Indigenous, and people of colour youth working with the guidance of accomplished community-based mentors to produce videos that shine a light on social inequities. Youth then developed interactive workshops around these videos to engage school-aged children and youth in a range of activities that encourage creative reflection, critical thinking, and courageous conversation. These workshops are youth-created, and when and where possible, facilitated by youth in schools. Given pandemic restrictions, the videos and all associated educational resources are also available online–for free or by donation.
All the many program components encourage youth to use arts-based storytelling to reflect upon the systems behind their experiences of both marginalization and privilege. Through this process young people begin to develop the social, emotional, and critical thinking skills needed to identify and challenge discriminatory attitudes and behaviours–whether they be internalized, interpersonal, or systemic.
The ChARTing Change Art Contest has been created to broaden student engagement beyond those participating in the workshops. It encourages all young people between the ages of 14 and 18 (who live in BC) to envision their hopes for the future–to chart the change they want to see in the world–and express it artistically through a range of mediums. See the ChARTing Change Art Contest for details.
ChARTing Change is a Program Designed and led by the Access to Media Education Society.
AMES Mandate is to uplift emerging creative change-makers through accessible and inclusive programs that provide unique opportunities for young people to make and share meaningful media. AMES is rooted in the core values of: accessibility, diversity, inclusivity, and creativity, and predominantly works with youth who have lived experiences of various forms of oppression. AMES engages marginalized youth in personally and socially transformative storytelling through digital media, artistic collaboration, and peer facilitation.