Peter DiCampo and Austin Merrill will partner with the Bronx Documentary Center, the Learning About Multimedia Project (LAMP), and Uncharted Digital to pilot a media literacy curriculum for New York City students at Immaculate Conception School in the Bronx, New York. Project partners will use Everyday Africa, an online collection of cell-phone images taken by photographers living and working in Africa, to challenge stereotypical representations of Africans in Western media. Students will learn to document their own lives and neighborhoods. Final projects will be included in an “Everyday Bronx” Instagram feed and exhibited at the Bronx Documentary Center.
DiCampo, Merrill, and their partners will also develop phase one of an interactive website, where African photographers can upload content, providing Everyday Africa’s images with local voices and personal context. They hope to replicate this educational program in other schools in New York City and throughout the United States. Their goal is to provide American students with a more nuanced understanding of daily life across the African continent.