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Past Projects
Location: Washington, D.C.
Issue: Youth Advocacy
Dates Of Project: Ongoing
Partner: DC Alliance of Youth Advocates
S.T.E.P. Up DC is an issue-focused citywide education organizing initiative based in northwest Washington, D.C. Our goal is to identify, train and support youth leaders who can build the power to create policy changes that ensure every student graduates prepared for higher education or meaningful employment. S.T.E.P. Up D.C. is coordinated by two D.C. nonprofits – Critical...
Location: Columbia Heights
Dates Of Project: January-June 2012
Partner: 8th Grade American History Class
Critical Exposure has partnered with an 8th Grade American History class at the Capital City Public Charter Upper School. In their history class, the students are studying the Civil Rights Movement, particularly the Brown vs. Board of Education case of 1954. CE is joining in this discussion by challenging the students to think about how the stories and experiences of those involved in...
Location: Washington, D.C.
Dates Of Project: 6/2012 - 8/2012
Critical Exposure partnered with a teen group at Children's Hospital this summer to investigate issues of sexual health, with a particular focus on the lack of sex education in schools. Students explored photos taken by people with HIV/AIDS from around the globe and eventually took to the streets of D.C. to document any signs of public education around sexual health. The youth interviewed...
Location: Washington, D.C.
Dates Of Project: 6/2012 - 8/2012
Critical Exposure partnered with Metro TeenAIDS, an organization committed to training youth to serve as peer educators on sexual health and HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. We worked with their Young Women of Color Leadership Council, training students in the skills of photography, writing, and advocacy. Youth documented the lives of young people in D.C., interviewed D.C. youth and adults the...
Location: Ward 4, Washington, D.C.
Dates Of Project: 6/2012 - 8/2012
This summer Critical Exposure partnered with Youth Ambassadors at M.O.M.I.E.’s TLC, a youth organization based in D.C.’s Ward 4. Students discussed high rates of homelessness throughout the city and the need for improved facilities for the homeless. They also documented how high crime rates affect their communities and why better youth employment opportunities are important for education and...
Location: Bladensburg, MD
Dates Of Project: 6/2012 - 8/2012
This summer, Critical Exposure worked in Prince George’s County, Maryland, partnering with Eco City Farms and the Magic Johnson Community Empowerment Center in Bladensburg. We worked with youth in the summer “Seed to Feed” program – which trained youth to be peer educators in food justice, health, and nutrition – and taught them how to use photography to advocate for improved access to fresh...
Location: Ward 8, Washington, D.C.
Dates Of Project: 6/2012 - 8/2012
For the second year in a row, Critical Exposure partnered with the DCCAH to work with youth participating in the Summer Youth Employment Program. These youth were based at We Act Radio, an independent radio station on MLK Ave in Anacostia. Our students spent their summer exploring the changes happening in Anacostia; students interviewed and photographed business and home owners from the...
Location: Ward 4, Washington, D.C.
Dates Of Project: 6/2012 - 8/2012
This summer Critical Exposure partnered with World Vision's Youth Empowerment Program and the Latin American Youth Center at Roosevelt Senior High School. Students discussed the underlying causes of high teenage pregnancy rates, and the lack of communication resources for ESL students and their families. Students then created community partnership campaigns around these two issues by...
Location: Washington, DC
Dates Of Project: 6/2012 - 8/2012
This summer Critical Exposure partnered with the Young Women’s Project. We trained youth allies in their Foster Care Campaign on how to use photography and writing to enhance their advocacy efforts around the Foster Care Youth Rights Act, which was recently introduced into the D.C. Council and is now in a working group. Youth documented the rights that all foster care youth are guaranteed but...
Location: Washington, D.C.
Issue: More Investment in Upward Bound
Dates Of Project: 6/11 - 7/11
Partner: LAYC, GWU
This summer Critical Exposure worked with a group of students who used photography to advocate for more funding for their college prep program -- and they won!
The students attend public and public charter schools throughout the city, but they come together to participate in an Upward Bound program through the Latin American Youth Center. Upward Bound is a program funded by the U.S....
Location: Washington, DC
Issue: The Dropout Crisis
Dates Of Project: 2008-present
Partner: S.T.E.P. Up DC, DC Alliance of Youth Advocates, Sasha Bruce Youth-Led, Spingarn STAY Senior High School, Ballou Senior High School, Youth Action Research Group
Nearly 50% of DC students do not graduate from high school. Only 9% get a college degree within five years of leaving high school. Critical Exposure has sought to provide the DC community and policymakers with a unique youth perspective on the causes, consequences, and solutions to the city’s graduation crisis.
In 2009-2010, Critical Exposure worked with students in different programs around the...
Location: New Orleans
Issue: School conditions post-Hurricane Katrina
Dates Of Project: 2008-2010
Partner: Fyre Youth Squad, Vietnamese American Young Leaders of New Orleans, Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools
Since February 2008, Critical Exposure has been working with middle and high school youth in New Orleans to document conditions in their schools following Hurricane Katrina. Youth from organizations across the city, including Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools, the Fyre Youth Squad, and Vietnamese American Young Leaders of New Orleans, are working together to ensure there is a strong youth voice in...
Location: Washington, DC
Issue: Youth Homelessness
Dates Of Project: 2008
Partner: DC Alliance of Youth Advocates, Sasha Bruce Independent Living Program
In 2007, Critical Exposure partnered with the DC Alliance of Youth Advocates (DCAYA) to bring attention to youth homelessness in DC. Critical Exposure and DCAYA trained several formerly homeless youth in the Sasha Bruce Independent Living Program to use photography to illustrate aspects of living on the streets.
The youths’ photographs were turned into postcards and other advocacy tools used to...
Location: Pennsylvania
Issue: Fair funding for all public schools
Dates Of Project: 2007-2008
Partner: Education Law Center, Good Schools PA, Youth United for Change, Sto-Rox High School, McKeesport High School
Critical Exposure provided high school students across the state of Pennsylvania with cameras and training to enable them to document the impact of underfunding on their education, in partnership with organizations like Youth United for Change in Philadelphia. The students’ images and writing became a central component of a campaign effort to engage the public around the issue of educational...
Location: Washington, DC
Issue: Teen Pregnancy
Dates Of Project: 2007-2008
Partner: MELD-Even Start, Alexandria Youth Council, Alexandria Campaign on Adolescent Pregnancy
Critical Exposure has run a number of projects focused on the issue of teen pregnancy. Through the Meld-Even Start program in Washington, DC, we worked with teen parents who documented both the joys and difficulties of being a young parent. They wrote compelling captions, poetry, and journal entries to accompany photographs that gave a firsthand account of the challenges they faced as teen...
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Issue: Fulfilling the Promise of School Segregation Cases
Dates Of Project: 2006
Partner: IDRA
Albuquerque, NM - Critical Exposure worked with a small group of high school students to document the ways in which the promises of two court cases, Brown v. Board of Education and Mendez v. Westminster, have been fulfilled in their schools and how they remain unfulfilled. The students took photographs of their schools, wrote captions, and exhibited and spoke about their work during a Community...
Location: Washington, DC
Issue: School Facilities
Dates Of Project: 2006
Partner: Youth Education Alliance, Fix Our Schools, Close Up Foundation, Inner Vision
During the winter of 2005-2006, students from several organizations across the District of Columbia documented the conditions of their school facilities as well as positive aspects of their education.
Students then shared their photographs with DC City Councilmembers as they debated over the School Modernization Financing Act. The legislation, which was approved in March 2006, promises $200...
Location: Baltimore, MD
Issue: School facilities
Dates Of Project: 2004-2006
Partner: Community Law in Action (CLIA), Baltimore Youth Congress, Kids on the Hill, Teen Leaders for Change, Crossroads Middle School, Maryland ACLU, Maryland Education Coalition, Safe and Sound's Youth Ambassadors, Wide Angle Media, Youth Dreamers, Baltimore Algebra Project
Baltimore was the site of Critical Exposure’s first project. In 2004-2005, 75 students took thousands of photographs of conditions in their schools, both positive and negative. More than 2,000 people, including the CEO of Baltimore City Schools, attended exhibits and events featuring students and their photographs. Venues included art galleries, a public library, a local college, and Baltimore...
Location: National
Issue: School conditions
Dates Of Project: 2/1/2011 - 2/22/2011
Partner: 21st Century School Fund, Healthy Schools Campaign
Check out the results of the contest and exhibit here.
The 21st Century School Fund, Healthy Schools Campaign and Critical Exposure have launched Through Your Lens: School Facilities Across America, a national photo and essay contest, at www.ThroughYourLens.org. The contest, which will remain open until February 22, enables students, teachers, and...
Location: Silver Spring, MD
Dates Of Project: 11/2011 - 2/2012
Partner: Community Bridges Jumpstart
Critical Exposure has partnered with Community Bridges, a nonprofit working to empower young girls in Montogomery County, MD, to work with a group of girls at Eastern Middle School. The girls have been very vocal about leadership, social change and improving their community through their photographs. They recently decided to work towards making their school and neighboring community 'Go...
Location: Ward 4, Washington, D.C.
Issue: School modernization
Dates Of Project: 10/2011 - ?
Roosevelt Senior High School, a comprehensive public high school in Ward 4 of D.C., was built nearly 80 years ago. While the building has seen small improvements over the years, the school building has many structural issues such as aging windows, leaky ceilings, broken sinks, and outdated technology. The staff and students have watched many other D.C. schools leap ahead in the modernization line...
Location: Ward 1, Washington, D.C.
Issue: Housing, Homelessness, Gentrification
Dates Of Project: 10/2011 - 1/2012
Partner: Columbia Heights/Shaw Collaborative
Weed and Seed students discussed many issues that affect them both directly and indirectly within the Columbia Heights and Shaw neighborhoods. They used the skills they learned in the Critical Exposure class to document these issues. Many of their photos depict the inability of uprising developments to provide an environment for original inhabitants of the area. Gentrification, slum...
Location: Cesar Chavez Parkside Middle School
Dates Of Project: 10/2010 - 1/2011
SEE THE PHOTOS
Students at Cesar Chavez Parkside Middle School, a group of 25 6th, 7th and 8th graders, have identified two policies at their school that would like to see changed and improved. The first is the school's late policy. If students arrive after 7:55 a.m. they are required to sit in the school's gymnasium and miss the entirety of their first period class. While...
Location: Ward 7, Washington, D.C.
Dates Of Project: 1/2012 - 6/2012
Partner: American history class
Critical Exposure is working with two 11th-grade American history classes at H.D. Woodson Senior High School in Ward 7 of Washington, D.C. As students learn about economic divisions and social justice struggles throughout American history, Critical Exposure will train the youth in photography so that they document their experiences as young people in the District today. As they gain an education...
Location: Ward 1, Washington, D.C.
Issue: Language access
Dates Of Project: 1/2012 - 6/2012
Partner: Many Languages One Voice (MLOV)
Critical Exposure is partnering with Many Languages One Voice (MLOV), a non-profit organization in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood of D.C. that is focused on improving language access rights for English Language Learners. Our MLOV youth will be working on two projects this semester: the first is to conduct interviews and photograph the stories of English language learners. This project will be...
Location: Columbia Heights, Washington, D.C.
Issue: Challenges for young women in D.C.
Dates Of Project: 06/11 - 08/11
Partner: D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities
During the summer of 2011, Critical Exposure worked with a group of ten young women in the D.C. Commission on Arts & Humanities' Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP). Students held a final exhibit in August at the Department of Employment Services. The youth wrote the following introduction to frame their exhibit, encouraging members of the D.C. arts and employment sectors to think...
Location: Washington, D.C.
Issue: Documenting the unique roles and responsibilites of Higher Achievement scholars.
Dates Of Project: 02/2011 - 05/2011
Partner: Higher Achievment Program
This Spring, Critical Exposure worked with a group of 10 middle-school scholars at the Ward 1 Higher Achievment Program center. The scholars engaged with their unique artistic perspectives around what it means to be a HAP scholar. We explored the schedule of their time at HAP, such as time spent with mentors and time alloted for them to "just be kids" and play in the park. We...
