We’re so thankful for our board members for their relentless support for our work. Recently, Dr. Rother, who’s been involved with YTF as a board member and volunteer since 2006, presented YTF and the PeaceOpoly platform at the NAMLE conference. Here, he reflects on his involvement with YTF and experience at the NAMLE conference.
On June 27, 2015 I gave a presentation at the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) in Philadelphia on behalf of Youth for Technology Foundation (YTF). The theme of the NAMLE Conference was ‘Celebrating Connectivity Across Cultures’. More than three hundred delegates from around the globe attended the Conference. The title of my presentation as described in the Conference program was PeaceOpoly – A Platform for Civic Engagement and Social Accountability While Inspiring a Generation of Youth Media Journalists. Thanks to funding from Ford Foundation, YTF’s PeaceOpoly is‘an interactive, online social strategy educational platform for collaboration; educate and engage youth in democratic process; immersing them in real life situations’.
Before I go any further I should state that I am not from Nigeria and in all honesty played a minor role in PeaceOpoly’s development. So the question is why would I take on the task of presenting on behalf of YTF at NAMLE. The answer while quite simple is fundamentally crucial. That is, since I first became involved with YTF in March 2006 when I was invited to volunteer media literacy projects with teens and women in the village of Owerri, Nigeria, I have been impressed by YTF’s dedication and belief in the value of youth, education, employment, entrepreneurship and the promotion of youth citizens as essential participants in a democratic society through the use of leading edge technology. Further it is not what YTF does but how it goes about reaching its aims. That is, it is my belief that the approach used by YTF is to teach far reaching societal skills in order to satisfy a need they have rather than providing a temporary solution to a problem.Another way of saying this can be found in the proverb that states If you give a ‘hungry (person) a fish, you’ll have fed (him/her) for a single day; but if you were to teach (him/her) how to fish, s/he would be able to feed themself for a lifetime’.To put it simply, I strongly believe in YFT’s mission and numerous initiatives.
And so while the intent of my presentation was to introduce PeaceOpoly, in reality I was anxious to use it as an example of just one of YTF’s best practice around the use of Media Literacy and technology as it relates to the democratization of marginalized youth, the disabled and women in Nigeria. As I pointed out in my presentation PeaceOpoly represents the following elements that are crucial to so much of YTF’s work, democracy, literacy, education and citizenship. I also argue that as we move beyond the 2015 Millennium Goals YTF’s projects such as PeaceOpoly will have much to offer the 2015-2030 Sustainable Goals in the way of prosperity, gender equality, health, human capacity,peace & security, infrastructure, ICT and human rights.
It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to introduce YTF and PeaceOpoly to a diverse audience at the NAMLE Conference.
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Irving Lee Rother, PhD is on the Board of Trustees at YTF. He is a multi-award-winning Canadian media educator whose experience includes teaching, volunteering, consulting, advising, and designing media education curriculum at the school, university, provincial, and international levels across a variety of disciplines with diverse educators and students.
