Fall 2007 Media Justice Initiative Grantees

Crossroads Fund proudly announces that we awarded grants of $5,000 each to 5 organizations in fall of 2007 through our Media Justice Initiative. This special grantmaking program was made possible through support from the Ford Foundation through the Funding Exchange.

The Media Justice Initiative supports efforts for access, opportunity, literacy and control of media resources in the service of social justice and human rights.
 

Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues (CICWI) educates and mobilizes the religious community to support low-wage workers who are subject to work place abuses through workers' rights education, legal intervention and collective action. The Media Justice grant will support Radio/TV Chamba, a worker-led, Spanish-language, independent media project that includes periodic shows on Cable Access Network (CAN) TV and weekly radio shows through WLUW 88.7, a community radio station.

Health and Medicine Policy Research Group (HMPRG) has a history in health policy analysis in Illinois with an overarching mission of social justice in health. Their focus currently is on the under-funding of the Cook County Bureau of Health Services and the implications to Cook County residents and the health care system as a whole. Media Justice funding supports the creation of alternative ways to capture and disseminate information on the situation given the limited coverage by the mainstream press. HMPRG will expand its website to serve as an organizing hub by posting information, developing blogs and using community experts to document and provide some analysis of the situation as it progresses.

Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) is based in Little Village and Pilsen, home to the region’s largest coal-burning electrical generating plant (Crawford Station) and dozens of industrial facilities. The Media Justice grant supports their youth media project and will be used for basic journalism workshops, to enhance the quality and distribution of their current newsletter, and for training in multi-media technology to enable them to use social networking sites to organize, reach out to their peers, and create blogs.

Spoke Digital Films is committed to using filmmaking to document and tell stories that do not fit comfortably within the mainstream media or traditional film outlets. Their current project, Shielded Brutality, documents the torture case against former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge and officers under his direction. The documentary examines the persistent failures of the criminal justice system, especially as it pertains to issues of race and class, as well as the failure of local and national media to adequately cover this issue. The Media Justice grant supports the completion and distribution of the documentary which can be used as a resource in community organizing around criminal justice issues.

We The People Media stems out of Residents’ Journal, a publication that was created and written by residents of public housing through the Chicago Housing Authority. We The People Media works to equip adults and youth from underserved communities with reporting, editing and publishing skills so that they may own and tell their stories through the Residents’ Journal; plays an active part in the media justice movement nationally and in Chicago; collaborates with national media and academic institutions to shape coverage of the inner city and to challenge stereotypes of low-income communities. The Media Justice grant supports their ongoing media justice work.