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UploadOriginally released on April 16, 2009.
Vocalo.org, an innovative public radio station and web community, is re-launching a project aimed at broadcasting the experiences and insights of homeless youth in Spring 2009. Expanding on the success of their fall 2008 program, Vocalo.org hopes to develop more relationships with homeless youth participants so they can tell their own stories to the community at-large via the Vocalo.org broadcast.
“Part of Vocalo.org’s mission is to give voice to individuals you wouldn’t normally hear on the radio, on-line and in the media in general,” said general manager Wendy Turner.
Vocalo.org program coordinator Sarah Lu said, “A big motivator for participants is knowing that they can tell their own stories in the way they want to and that people will really listen.”
Through roundtables, or facilitated, audio-recorded discussions, participants will share stories about specific issues of homelessness with each other and with Vocalo.org listeners at www.vocalo.org and at 89.5 FM.
“To survive homelessness, you have to be smart, resourceful, and master certain skills. In the roundtables, youth will share their insights and knowledge and will help other youth who may be struggling,” says Lu.
From the fall 2008 program, a youth offered this tip for her peers: “[In certain places] the stores have bad security, like it’s easy to steal out of there—kind of like they’re trying to help, but not be direct about it.”
Lu continues, “Over the course of the project, some of the most compelling stories youth shared were about why shelters aren't a viable option for them and how they choose alternative places to sleep. A disproportionate number of street-based youth are LGBTQ. Putting these youth in a regular shelter can be placing them in a situation where they're going to get harassed, and so squatting or sleeping on the train becomes a safer choice.” According to a 2007 study from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, LGBTQ youth comprise from 20 to 40% of all homeless youth.
In addition to the roundtable discussions, youth will also record interviews with people on-the-street about the issue of homelessness. Lu says, “In the fall program when we first started recording interviews, folks jumped at the chance to bust myths about homeless youth and counter some of the ignorance they push up against in the Lakeview community.”
One homeless youth said, “When we did interviews on the street, I came up to this guy, and my first question was, ‘What do you think about the homeless youth in this area?’ And he said, ‘Wow, homeless youth?’ That really threw me for a loop, like, [thinking to myself,] ‘Wow - you didn’t know that they existed?’ I let him know that there are 26,000 homeless youth in Illinois, and only about 100 shelter beds for homeless youth in all of Chicago, and he just said, ‘Wow.’”
From the fall program, Lu produced the audio from the roundtables and youth-led interviews. The fall program culminated in the creation of a cd featured in the H.E.L.L.O. Art Show, which showcased homeless youth art and activism in November 2008. Full selections from the cd can be heard on the Vocalo website at http://vocalo.org/explore/users/MicYrVoice. The spring program will likewise showcase the content created with a new CD.
This initiative is a collaboration between Vocalo.org, the Broadway Youth Center – a program of Howard Brown Health Center - and the Night Ministry.
About Vocalo.org:
Vocalo.org is a website and radio station committed to fostering conversation between diverse constituents in the Lake Michigan region. Vocalo.org was started in June 2007 as an initiative of Chicago Public Radio to make public radio more open to the public at-large. The station invites everyone to join the conversation by uploading stories, interviews, and text to www.vocalo.org or by calling the hotline at 888-635-1112. Vocalo.org broadcast live from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and features all-night and weekend mix tapes of content during automated hours. Vocalo.org broadcasts on 89.5 FM to a footprint of 2.5 million residents in northwest Indiana, Chicago and southwest Michigan and streams online live to the world. As of 2009, Vocalo.org’s online community has grown to more than 3,000 contributors.
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