Create Action named Global Girl Media as a recipient of a Sony Create Action Grant to support their inspiring mission to end racial, gender and economic inequity by diversifying the media industry. The organization empowers young women to bring their often-overlooked perspectives onto the global media stage. “It’s an organization that allows young girls of color the opportunity to tell stories, and to tell our stories through being able to make documentaries,” says Nia, the organization’s youth director. As recipients of the grant, Global Girl Media receives $50,000 in cash to continue and expand the organization's work, $50,000 in Sony Electronics products to support their action plan, and this Sony-produced short film telling their story.
Founded in 2010, Global Girl Media is currently active in various communities and areas including South Africa, Kosovo, Chicago, Los Angeles, Greece, London and the Bay Area. They empower students to tell their own stories and enter media careers by giving them the skills, experience, and professional connections to succeed and improve female representation in media.
“The media shapes the way that we think,” explains Global Girl Media Los Angeles Program Director Ajianna Covington. “The media shapes our narratives. It shapes the way that we think about our world, think about ourselves. And so being able to have these skills to learn media literacy, to learn the skills to be able to create a film – giving us that power, we’re showing you how to think about our community.”
The organization believes training young women of color in digital media journalism is important to developing strong, healthy communities. The nonprofit works with females ages 15-20 in underserved communities with a focus on developing media literacy, storytelling and digital journalism and filmmaking skills. By putting girls behind the camera and at the center of the story, they’re changing the storytellers so they can change the world.
“Going through Global Girl Media, the girls get an insane amount of confidence,” explains Nia. “To learn how to find their voice, how to use their voice, how to ask the questions that they probably weren’t asking before, think about things that they weren’t thinking about before. It gives them a network of opportunities. It gives them a network of women and supporters who are going to put them in the positions that they need to be in, who put them in the rooms that they need to be in, who give them the opportunities that aren’t usually given to them.”
Learn more about Global Girl Media at globalgirlmedia.org.
Learn more about Sony Create Action HERE.
