Home Stories brings UMD undergraduates together with local, newcomer immigrant youth to reflect upon, discuss, and produce digital stories of home, family, belonging, and self. The project addresses the growing number of often-unaccompanied migrant youth who travel to the U.S.-Mexico border to live in the long-standing Central American communities near the University of Maryland. Home Stories was designed in partnership with local resettlement services to take up where those services must leave off. Newcomers navigate multiple identities but rarely have the opportunity to reflect on or share these experiences.
UMD students will collaborate with migrant youth from local middle and high schools to write and produce their stories in digital formats that develop technical skills and promote self-reflection and critical thinking.
The project will culminate in a community screening of the filmed stories these youth produce, which will then be available on a public website. The template will become immediately available to groups working with other immigrant youth.
SUPPORT THE URGENT INITIATIVE
The Center for Synergy in the College of Arts and Humanities has received $100,000 in match-based funding through a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Humanities Access grant to fund Home Stories.
Funding from NEH is contingent upon UMD raising $100,000 by May 1, 2018, and another $50,000 by May 1, 2018.