Who We are




Mission Statement

Richmond Youth Media Productions (RYMP) strengthens the ability of our underserved young people to express their hopes, needs and concerns through video and other digital formats. By participating in this project, these young members of our community have the opportunity to tell their unique stories, support our community and explore positive opportunities that are available to them. Our program helps them expand their sense of being able to impact positively on - and succeed in - mainstream American society.

We do this by teaching young people from our community television production skills under the mentorship of media professionals.

Through the RYMP, students extend the learning from the classroom into their daily lives and confront real life issues of importance to them and their communities (e.g., immigration, violence, homophobia). Through this learning process, the students obtain personal and professional skills that enable them to expand their vision of what’s possible for them beyond the limited geography of their school and their community. In addition, a strong mentoring component ensures that the skills will be passed on to younger students.

We also teach an accredited 3-unit college course in collaboration with Contra Costa College (CCC) - our local community college. This course provides an entrée into college for many of our students for whom post high school education seems beyond reach.

 



OVERARCHING GOALS

Personal Growth

RYMP teaches our students that they have self-worth and provides a positive, lifelong alternative to life on the street. We wish to:

  • Enable students to develop self-starting skills.
  • Teach teamwork and the importance of collaboration.
  • Develop leadership skills by having more advanced students serve as mentors to less experienced students.
  • Teach our youth how to take a task from concept to completion.


Academic Growth

Through our collaboration with Contra Costa College, our students experience college life first-hand, interact as equals with adult college students and realize that they can succeed in college.  Richmond Youth Media:

  • Supports the academic curriculum.
  • Emphasizes the importance of learning and attainment of high standards.
  • Enhances critical thinking and promote independent ideas.
  • Integrates classroom learning into the daily lives of our students.
  • Encourages interested students to practice theories and skills in a real world environment.
  • Nurtures and expands the collaborative relationship between RYMP, our community and Contra Costa College.




CAREER/BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

RYMP uses a production company model to teach our young people how to succeed in a real-world working environment.   This model creates pay-generating work for our students while making videos of importance to our community.  Examples include professional productions for the City of Richmond, the National Park Service, the Richmond Police Department, Chevron, the West Contra Costa Education Fund and Richmond’s Building Blocks for Kids.  Richmond Youth Media:

  • Provides a cutting edge partnership between industry, government, non-profits and education and a bridge to a growth industry.
  • Teaches sound work practices to model how to succeed in real-world work environments.
  • Offers paid production jobs to students who work on professional programs.
  • Demonstrates that, for some, college provides career/business opportunities available only with a college education.