Content & Programs Update– Summer 2021

Our Spring workshop, “Home Sick: How Where We Live Impacts Health,” was a big success, with 19 students from seven cities producing five high-quality feature stories on the health effects of homelessness, lead poisoning, unaffordable housing and neighborhood-level violence. All but one of the stories have been published. (We’re still looking for a Miami-area publisher, so if you have any leads, send them our way!).

The spring also brought two exciting UHMP content collaborations:

1. A group of six UHMP students and interns helped produce the vast majority of the content for The Washington Blade’s LGBTQ Pride special issue, focusing on youth mental health. Students wrote stories, took videos  and shot photos -- and one of our own, UHMP intern JoJo Brew, ended up with his photo on the cover of the issue. The collaboration culminated in a June 18 issue-launch party at the Dupont Underground, where more than 90 people gathered and UHMP students shared with LGBTQ+ allies and community supporters their artistic, musical, and journalistic talents. 

2. UHMP was commissioned to be the media partner for America’s Promise Alliance, covering a series of youth-led efforts in six cities across the country to address serious issues such as mental health, racial justice, and school safety. A team of six UHMP alums, all standouts in previous workshops, wrote stories about the teens’ efforts in St. Louis, Rochester, N.Y., South Carolina, Albuquerque, N.M., Staten Island, N.Y., and Jacksonville, Fla. Their work will be published in local news outlets, and a story about the national effort is soon to be offered to USA Today for publication.

Looking ahead, UHMP is holding two summer journalism “bootcamps”-- a new offering designed to introduce students with little or no journalism experience to the basics of news writing, and prepare them to enter our more-advanced workshops in the future. Our first group of eight students began their two-week boot camp on June 28, and another group is set to begin on July 26.

We also have a new member of the Content & Programs team arriving on July 26: Our Managing Editor of Content & Programs is Julianne Hill, a Chicago-based award-winning reporter, writer and producer whose work, in video, audio and print has appeared on PBS, NPR and in other outlets. Julianne has been a documentary producer, essay-writer and worked for seven years as an on-air reporter at WBEZ in Chicago.

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Screenshot of UHMP students on zoom call for housing workshop session

A group of LGBTQ+ young people at the Casa Ruby homeless shelter are shown during a spring interview with the Urban Health Media Project.

Dr. Otis Brawley of Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center poses with (from left) UHMP CEO Jayne O'Donnell, Event and Community Liason Sheila Ward-Hamiel and Janette North-Kabore.