Students Document the Work of Project HOME
For several years, one of the most innovative programs happening at Project HOME’s Honickman Learning Center Comcast Technology Labs is the Cross Bridge Scholars Program. Cross Bridge Scholars brings together students from North Philadelphia who participate in HLCCTL activities with students from Episcopal Academy in Newtown Square. The students engage in collaborative learning, exploring issues of race, class, culture, and mass media to better understand and bridge their two communities. Scholars discuss these topics through a wide variety of technology-based projects that emphasize writing, culture, media, and race studies.
This past year the Cross Bridge Scholars created, filmed, and edited a documentary on Project HOME. Though the Cross Bridge Program is housed at the Honickman Learning Center Comcast Technology Labs' Teen Program, this was the first major project by the Cross Bridge Scholars focusing on Project HOME.
The heart of the documentary is a series of interviews by Tynesha Robinson and Caroline Hunter, using research and questions prepared by other Scholars. Persons interviewed included Project HOME’s co-founder S. Mary Scullion as well as Mary Randles who directs the Honickman Learning Center Comcast Technology Labs, and two staff members of Project HOME’s Outreach Coordination Center, Sam Santiago and Luis Sanchez.
In her interview, S. Mary explained the meaning behind Project HOME: “H is for housing, O is for opportunities for employment, M is for medical care and E is for education."
Talking with and interviewing outreach worker Sam Santiago was one of the more interesting moments for the students. "The hardest part for me,” he says in the film, “and usually I tell this to everybody, is when I am engaging people and I actually have to...when I leave and the person stays there, that is the hardest part.” Sam and Luis really helped the students understand and appreciate all that is involved with street outreach as a vital part of the work of Project HOME.
During her interview, Mary Randles reaffirmed her responsibilities to persons who experience homelessness and further discussed the role of education in Project HOME “We are here to help them in whatever way we can,” she stated.
The production was fully Scholar-run, from research and writing, to directing, lighting, sound, producing, and editing. The Cross Bridge Scholars also utilized music created by other teen participants in the HLCCTL's Teen Program.
You can watch the video – and see other projects by the Cross Bridge Scholars Program – at the website, http://www.crossbridgescholars.org/.
