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| 10/17/2007 1:04:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | 'Latinitas' offers media enrichment
LAURI ZACHRY
Leader Staff
Some Anderson Mill Elementary students Tuesday turned simple formations of shadows and reflections into photographs, which could be printed and published online in the near future.
First- and second-grade students at Anderson Mill will learn multimedia aspects in areas such as photography, radio and video, throughout the school year through the school's Latinitas program.
The Anderson Mill Latinitas group meets each Tuesday afternoon during the school's After School Promoting Intensive Remediation & Enrichment Program. About 10 to 20 Anderson Mill girls participate in this weekly program.
This is the first year for the Latinitas program in RRISD. Fifteen other schools in Austin ISD have participated in the program since it began in Central Texas almost five years ago, Donnelly said. The paper publishes monthly with about 100 volunteers assisting the girls writing and piecing the online work together. About 50 percent of the content for the online magazine is student-generated and consists of subjects like music reviews and reactions to hot topics such immigration reactions, said Latinitas chief executive officer Laura Donnelly. The online magazine has about 20,000 to 30,000 subscribers.
"This is a way of simplifying media and showing that it can be fun and being a reporter can be fun," Donnelly said.
The Latinitas online magazine project began as a group research project for Donnelly and her classmate, Alicia Rascon, at the University of Texas in Austin in 2002. By January 2003, they published their first Latinitas online magazine geared toward nine to 14 year-olds. Donnelly has a background in public relations and freelance writing for publications such as the Austin American-Statesman and the Austin Chronicle while Rascon has experience working for KUT (UT's radio station). Both have experience working in the nonprofit sector.
"We formed this group because there is such little representation of Latinas in the media, especially in print media," Donnelly said. "We wanted to show these girls a lot of women have decision-making roles in the media. What sets us a part from other programs trying to help with is we are doing more than just translating materials. We are teaching about culture."
Most of the girls participating in the program are Latinas, but several of the girls are either white, black or from a different race origin. In the Anderson Mill ASPIRE program, 82 percent of the girls participating are Hispanic while 40 percent of the total number of Anderson Mill ASPIRE students are girls, said Anderson Mill ASPIRE coordinator Amy Carillo.
Latinitas online magazine receives grant funding through companies such as Dell, Inc., IBM, Applied Materials, LCRA and the city of Austin. Recently, the nonprofit coordinated an ask campaign to help provide more grant programming for the programs.
The students participating in the Latinitas online magazine have enjoyed their experiences so far this year.
"We had so much fun we got to do a fashion show because we got to be silly," said second-grade student Jesse Calvey.
"I really liked it when we dressed up," said first-grade student Fernanda Rosa. "It was like being an actress because we wore wigs."
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