Shaping Youth BETA BLOG

August 31, 2010 “Be you!” Riiiiight.

In a media environment that cynically exploits how to act, what to wear, why to buy and who to be, girls are repeatedly told to “be themselves.”

GirlsHealth has a perky “Be healthy. Be happy. Be You. Be Beautiful” site.

Girls Inc is “inspiring girls to be strong, smart and bold.”

Jess Weiner is “Creating A Nation of Confident Women and Girls.” Courtney Macavinta’s holding RespectRx rallies. Rosalind Wiseman is “creating cultures of dignity,” pairing mother/daughters in a Dove Go Fresh sponsored “Girl World Tour” tackling girls’ relational aggression…

…AND in two weeks,  Curse of the Good Girl author Rachel Simmons is coming to the Bay Area with “Be You! The Real Girl Tour.” (here’s my prior interview with Rachel when Curse of the Good Girl launched. Sounds like a heckuvalotta girlpower eh?

It’s actually just a teeny weeny course correction in a rip-roaring, ever-changing sea, as these leaders help girls navigate away from pop culture icebergs running them aground in today’s media messaging and marketing environment. In fact, my first reaction to hearing the phrase “Be You” was “fergawdsakes they’re TRYING, but it’s easier said than done!” (more…)

August 12, 2010 In part one and part two of my posts about ABC Family’s Huge premiere, I hoped to see the show evolve from the hope and promise of some stellar scriptwriter ‘attachments’ to actually being ‘attached.’

I’d like to say they ‘had me at hello’ but frankly they did NOT.

I’m not an ABC Family ‘teen soap’ fan of the shallow sniper-fire of frenemies and sexcapade shenanigans of the usual tripe, and to complicate matters, I’m a wellness advocate for kids’ physical, emotional, and social health. (more on why that juxtaposition isn’t a disconnect in part two)

As the summer winds down, it’s interesting to see how I’ve warmed up and ‘attached’ to this show like beach sand clings to a sunscreened bod.

Hearty applause to Huge for looking at the shallow signals of using weight as social currency in our collective psyches. (Our own Shaping Youth adviser, Dr. Robyn Silverman has a book coming out in October along these lines called “Good Girls Don’t Get Fat: How Weight Obsession is Messing Up Our Girls and How We Can Help Them Thrive Despite It”)

The media maverick in me LOVES dialog snippets like this week’s pushback from lead character Will at the ‘weigh in’ scales, “I just don’t want to be infected by this crap!” (good luck with that in our media culture, baby) But as a writer, my HUGE hurray is for getting inside the skin of characters and creating a solid, relatable piece of work. (more…)

Aug 5, 2010 Meet Sabore Ole Oyie. My teen’s about to, as is her BFF and BF.

Yep, this afternoon I’m bringing a few teens for a “reality show” not to be missed at the Global Leaders for Justice Innovation dialogues. (video of Sabore’s water access project after the jump)

Sounds heady, oui? I see it as an open, public opportunity to expose kids to what’s going on in the rest of the world without the media filter of American myopia or vapid celebrity gossip.

As I wrote yesterday, when 21 representatives from 13 different countries don their colorful native garb and speak their visions as change agents and cycle-breakers, the global interconnected influence has the capacity to give a much needed jolt and a bracer of exposure to the harsh realities taking place on the rest of the planet, with teens THEIR age.

When stories unfold from young girls staving off lion’s roars to reach water after grueling miles of dangerous terrain, teens sit up and listen. Fifteen year olds empowered to break free of the sex slave chains of human trafficking in India to survive and THRIVE anew? Jaw-dropping work akin to GEMS-Girls right here in the US…How can we best use media to make it matter?!  (more…)

August 4, 2010 My teen dialog yesterday: “Did you have fun waterskiing with your dad?”

“Yah, we did, how was your Global Leaders for Justice thingie? What’d you DO all day, mom?”

“Um…well…let’s see…I got to work with Sabore Ole Oyie, a Masai Chief trying to build a local well so girls wouldn’t walk all day for water vying for turf with wildlife that could gobble them up en route…(GWLN video of Sabore and his Olsonyo-Rasha Water Project here partnering with BluePlanetNetwork) I met Smarita Sengupta a young woman empowering teens in Calcutta to escape the sex trafficking slave trade…”

“I got jazzed about using cell phones for health with Blanche Angeline Pitt from Tanzania who wants to deliver medical info to midwives in rural villages to prevent childbirth deaths and debunk taboos…And I made a local friend with Yolande Poirier, an Oracle pro who’s big on raising women’s visibility in tech, STEM, and media imprints.”

“Did you get to see GWLN alum? Anyone I know from ‘07?” (Yours truly, Amy Jussel, was honored to be a USA delegate for Women Leaders for the World, and my teen grew close to several of the attendees) “Well…no one YOU knew was there this time, but you CAN meet some of the 2010 leaders if you wanna come with me Thursday to the Global Innovation Dialogues when they all state their visions for change…“Cool. So there are GUYS in the program this year too?”

“Well, no, GLJ is different than WLW but it’s all GWLN.org —the event is free, open to the public (Aug 5) if you wanna bring a friend or two, but I CANNOT have you squirming or edgy or rushing me before I’m ready to go, you got it?” (rolls eyes/stomps off with a hrumpf) “Gawd mom…I’m 15, not 5, REALLY.” (more…)

Aug 2, 2010 As I opened my Facebook to check messages from GWLN’s Global Leaders for Justice organizers who I’ll be working with tomorrow and Thursday at SCU mentoring inspiring projects from all over the world, I scanned the ‘birthdays’ sidebar.

Keeping with the global theme, I was alerted to change agent Dylan Mahalingam’s 15th birthday today…I KNEW I had to give a huge shout out to the universe to pay heed to this extraordinary New Hampshire native, CEO of Lil’ MDG’s and TEDxTeen.

Dylan, your voice has dropped an octave or two and you no longer look like the doe-eyed nine year old founder of ‘Lil’ MDGs energizing humanity to meet the Millenium Development Goals of 2015 for proof positive that Kids Are Heroes…

As a handsome young gent of 15, he’s already accomplished more in the name of justice, diversity, human rights, gender equality, championing access to education and medical care ad a role model for the ‘very best in youth’ and it  makes my heart sing to know that he’s just gettin’ this party started. Yep, Dylan, you represent a generation of ‘Lil’ MDGs eager to rock the planet to uplift rather than tear down, and use media messaging in the ultimate positive way. (more…)

July 27, 2010 “Why aren’t you posting on Shaping Youth every day like you used to, Amy? Are you on summer hiatus like the networks?” Um, I guess that’s what you’d call it.

Frankly, it never occurred to me that I needed to ‘inform’ people that I was trying to eke out some ‘white space’ and life balance in the name of healthy media consumption, because it seemed like an obvious extension of our Shaping Youth nonprofit philosophy: “Don’t let media define you.”

True, there’s plenty of exciting media action that will impact youth, educators and ALL consumers of media, from mixes, music, mashups and mobile with the new Fair Use and DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) rulings.

Today’s  online privacy hearings in D.C. with Q&A of industry media pros from Facebook, Google, Apple and all the media giants are watchworthy for anyone and everyone. (especially those of us with high school teens quoting 1984 and freshly minted mind games after seeing Christopher Nolan’s Inception last week planting the seed for me pondering where privacy starts and stops in the ol’ noggin!)

Truth be told, if I kept on top of every single way that media and marketing is impacting kids 24/7, my office white board would like a subway map and my to-do list would be circular ‘To infinity and beyond!’ (more…)

July 21, 2010 Can you hear the drumbeat, Hollywood? It’s getting louder.

Girl advocates like Jessica Lawrence head to Capitol Hill to discuss H.R. 4925 tomorrow to share firsthand data about how depictions of women and girls in the media affect youth health and are landing sideways.

Small business entities like Melissa Wardy of  Wisconsin based PigtailPals has devoted an entire product line to “Redefining Girly” hoping to accentuate a fresh, girl-positive reality for our children. (WI is legislative home-state for HR 4925)

Today we’ll hear from both of these advocates for girls in part two of our Healthy Media Youth Act coverage, asking some tough questions about whether this bipartisan legislation has sharp teeth to be actionable and chomp down on worst offenders profiting on the backsides of kids, or whether it’s more of a nibble, nosh and nudge to stop devouring childhood and raise awareness for consumer action. (more…)