We’re Still Here youth producers, facilitators, and community members gather for the first screening of We’re Still Here Season Three.
We’re Still Here is a youth media project by and for young people in the Waccamaw Siouan tribe, ages 13-21, in Columbus County, North Carolina. The project is a collaboration between the Waccamaw Siouan tribe, Community CPR, and Coastal Youth Media. We’re Still Here is in its third season as a podcast. This season, young people in the Waccamaw Siouan tribe worked over the year to create the series. Youth used song, dance, audio landscapes, and documentary to share their stories. Included in the third season was a 5-part spoken word and documentary episodic YouTube series exploring what We’re Still Here means to young people of the Falling Star. Our latest season culminated with a community screening held at the Waccamaw Siouan tribal grounds in Buckhead, North Carolina.
We’re Still Here was a community-media making collaboration from start to finish. Waccamaw Siouan leaders, past participants, artists, and trainers and facilitators from the Coastal Youth Media and Community CPR teams co-designed the interactive workshops. Darlene Graham led youth outreach in collaboration with past participants. In the workshop, tribal elder and poet Shirley Freeman was the poet-in-residence. Ms. Freeman performed her own poetry about Waccamaw Siouan history for the youth participants, instructed writing exercises, and coached participants as they wrote their own poems inspired by the We’re Still Here theme. Most participants were writing poetry for the first time. Artist Nadine Patrick of the Waccamaw Siouan tribe performed and led a discussion about what inspired her to write We’re Still Here – the song which inspired our Season Three. Coastal Youth leader trained and collaborated with participants in performing their final poetry pieces to camera. Participants concluded the workshop by collaborating to design the opening sequence of the series. The workshop’s resident dancers performed traditional fancy dance and jingle dress dance to bring viewers into their series.
Workshop participants collaborate with each other, Falling Star elders, spoken word artists, and professional media producers to create their spoken word episodes.
The project is a collaboration between the Waccamaw Siouan tribe, Community CPR, and Coastal Youth Media.