Blogging, and webcasting, and twittering, OH MY!!!

I know I speak for all of Cable Positive when I say, YAMI UNIVERSITY is upon us!!! Now, you may ask what YAMI University is?? Youth AIDS Media Institute (YAMI) University is an opportunity through which we will educate and empower 17 youth to become HIV/AIDS media advocates and have them blog, vlog, and tweet in their everyday language. With youth from Massachusetts, New York, and Washington DC, we are excited to provide an intensive eight day training where the final project will be a multi-platform HIV/AIDS social advocacy campaign consisting of a three minute video which will serve as the foundation for print, web, mobile, and video elements of the campaign. For this inaugural YAMI U, we have invited youth from 4 ASO’s that Cable Positive has worked with in the past. The first of these organizations to be highlighted is TeenAIDS PeerCorp, located in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

We are thrilled to have their youth be a part of our training; as they have written and directed two public service campaigns, “Pool Party” and “Dance Party”, funded through our Tony Cox Community Fund grant. “Pool Party” which was aired nationally on Comcast, CableONE, Cox, and Suddenlink, was carried on YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook and aired from Kinshasa, Congo, as part of their 2008 World AIDS Day webcast. “Dance Party” was also translated into Spanish and made available to Spanish cable outlets (Galavision picked it up) and websites. Additionally, “Dance Party” was made available to schools for education and discussion. Seriously, these youth have been super busy!!

By disseminating their public education campaign using traditional and new media sources, TeenAIDS PeerCorp utilized different media outlets to gain different audiences in order to spread a vital call to action. Have you heard the call?

There is no better time than now to experience just how these new forms of media work to keep you informed with up to the minute details on YAMI University. Follow us on Twitter, stay tuned to this blog, and comment on photos and video as you become a virtual participant of YAMI U. Whether you are an ASO, CBO, or cable firm, YAMI University’s finished product will provide you tools in how to use new media to reach your communities and engage them to become active partners in education and empowerment. Please join us on our journey….