Our team works together to achieve three possible outcomes for our students: Education, employment and entrepreneurship.

Education

We believe that having access to affordable higher education is a significant career pathway when working with opportunity youth, which is why we have an official partnership with Lesley College of Art & Design. Through this partnership, our program counts as 30 college credits towards a Digital Film making degree. Students are also able to take advantage of FREE dual enrollment at Lesley College of Art & Design. We are continuously building relationships with other colleges in greater Boston to further access to future education for our alumni.

Employment

For many of our students, making the choice to go straight into the workforce from program is priority. In 2019 alone, we have paid out over 1700 hours in work to students above the living wage in Massachusetts. We do this while generating 30% of our gross income. Alumni of our program have since landed in roles in places that allows them to give back to Cambridge – places like the Moses Youth Center and Cambridge Rindge & Latin High School.

Entrepreneurship

Unique to our program is our focus to validate entrepreneurship as an outcome in modern workforce development. Training entrepreneurship is a necessity in freelancing or developing an effective media arts careers – over 75% of media arts professionals will work, or currently work as independent contractors! Our curriculum covers topics like financial literacy, project budgeting, client relationships, business development, maintaining cultural identity in the workplace, networking, and how to successfully develop and to pitch a project. Small businesses benefit from start up funds. As a trustee of Kiva, we can provide microfinancing loans to eligible alumni.

Our mission is to empower content creators of color to have careers in media arts through job training and paid internships.