Press Release... please forward...

You. Me. World.
A workshop on local and global citizenship

On May 1st from 7:30pm-9:30pm Helyx Chase of HH productions will be hosting a dialog and workshop to support The Trek Project. The Trek Project is a project that will follow students from buildOn (buildon.org) as they travel to Nicaragua to construct a school. The workshop will be a chance to talk about the ways that we see ourselves within the world and also to participate in the mapping project where we will examine the ways that we see ourselves in a global setting.
The Trek Project (thetrekproject.blogspot.com) is a multi-faceted, multi-media exploration of global identity, and citizenship. Filmmaker Helyx Chase (youtube.com/hhthinking) is embarking on this project to create a documentary about how we see ourselves within a global and local community; and how we are accountable/responsible within both of those communities. They will be traveling to Nicaragua this summer and following a group of youth from buildOn after school clubs in the Philadelphia and New York City areas as they build a school in a remote rural village. Ultimately, the maps and discussion generated at the workshop will be included in The Trek Project. While the event is free we are asking for donations to sponsor the trip to Nicaragua and supplies needed while in the country.
Chase is a queer, non-gender identified video maker, social justice activist and youth worker. They are 19; they were born in Philadelphia and raised just west of the city in Upper Darby. Chase, originally Hannah Horwitz, graduated from Upper Darby High School in 2007, with 2 scholarships for media production. They started seriously pursuing video when they were 15 and participated in the Scribe Video Center’s Documentary History Project for Youth in 2005. After the project was completed in January of 2006 they were an active member of Upper Darby High School’s broadcast journalism program.
They have produced multiple short pieces both independently and for classes, the most recent of which is a 25-minute documentary about the ways that women are portrayed in the media and how those images effect girls while they are growing up, it is called "Impacting Girls Influencing Lives". They produce video pieces that promote social justice, queer visibility, youth empowerment, and independent artists. They are heavily influenced by the work of Marlon Riggs and they possess a strong desire to create dialog about issues that are often not covered by the mainstream.

They blog at HHspeaking.blogspot.com, and can be reached at HHconnects@gmail.com.

7:30 pm at the A-Space on 47th and Baltimore, Philadelphia PA

Mapping Workshop

Come join us on the evening of May 1st to support the creation of The Trek Project. The Trek Project (thetrekproject.blogspot.com) is a multi-faceted, multi-media exploration of global identity, and citizenship. Filmmaker Helyx Chase (youtube.com/hhthinking) is embarking on this project to create a documentary about how we see ourselves within a global and local community; and how we are accountable/responsible within both of those communities. They will be traveling to Nicaragua this summer and following a group of youth from buildOn (buildOn.org) after school clubs in the Philadelphia and New York City areas as they build a school in a remote rural villiage. The event will consist of a workshop where we will explore how we see ourselves within the world through the creation of maps. Ultimately, the maps and discussion generated at the workshop will be included in The Trek Project. While the event is free we are asking for donations to sponsor the trip to Nicaragua and supplies needed while in the country.

7:30 pm at the A-Space on 47th and Baltimore, Philadelphia PA

International Outreach Granting Group

I have just been awarded $400 dollars through the International Outreach Granting Group:

"IOGG supports individuals engaged in activities that support international understanding, justice and peace; travel outside one's own country for purposes consistent with Friends concerns. Any project within the United States must have an international aspect to qualify." (http://www.pym.org/pm/more.php?id=1590_0_196_0_M)

This money will be primarily dedicated towards the purchase and creation of the solar charging unit so that I can re-charge my camera batteries while living in the Nicaraguan village.

Thank you to the International Outreach Granting Group!

This brings the total up to- $1120.68

Again thank you to everyone who donated! I am having another event May 1st and everything seems to be going well!

Perceptions, Mapping

If you flip a standard map of the world over it places the two continents that we are least likely to consider prominent in the positions of power. Africa and South America occupy the positions where our brains are used to seeing europe and north america... this is indicative of structures of power and colonialism that were prevalent when the continents of Africa, Asia, and America were "discovered" and these structures of power have carried through into what we see today when we look at dominant discourses in almost all forms of academia.




I want this project to be about mapping, about mapping our own perceptions of the world and the spaces that we occupy. For the next few months I will be collecting maps, most importantly I will be collecting maps from the high school students going on the trek to Nicaragua and the people that we will meet in Nicaragua. I want everyone to draw maps of their worlds as they see them. I will be able to use these maps as a tool to examine self perception, global perception, and ultimately where we place ourselves in the world...

Project Description

The Trek Project:

The Trek project is a multi-facited investigation of communities on a local and global level, and US based thought around the construction of our communities. It consists of a preview project (in a yet to be determined medium) and a longer form documentary that will be shot primarily this summer in Philadelphia and Nicaragua.


Trek Preview Project:

Many times well-intentioned westerners go into Latin American countries to “help” the people in them. This summer I will be following an organization that has built hundreds of schools in developing countries to Nicaragua where a group of high school students will be building a school in a small village. Before I go on this trip to complete the longer form documentary I want to do a promotional and investigative preview by examining buildOn, the organization I will be traveling with. The preview project will be an examination of the ways that the organization functions within the US and the perspectives that they translate into their work in developing countries.

The Documentary:

This part of the project is an investigation into communities that will be expressed in the form of a documentary. I will be following a ‘trek for knowledge’, a program out of buildOn, to Nicaragua. The participants on the trek are members of buildOn, a program that requires its participants to do community service in their own areas in addition to fundraising and cultural education. For many students in buildOn, is the chief buildOn experience is a ‘trek for knowledge’. Trek allows students to bring together the 3 pillars of the buildOn experience (community service, global education, and fundraising), by traveling to one of the buildOn countries, living in a community for 2 weeks and constructing a school. My trek experience changed my life and the way that I see my community. I hope to bring that experience together in this documentary about the ways that we build community both at home and abroad.

Fundraiser Update

SO!

The Fundraiser was pretty good. Didn't really have the attendance I would have hoped for but none the less between the actual event and the call for donations before hand I raised about 600$

remember my ultimate goal is 2000$

so 1400$ to go, but 600$ is a great start!

look out for more events to come, in Philly

I am looking to set something up with the A Space, and Cafe Mocha.