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Oregon Children’s Theatre and the multicultural production organization MediaRites have announced they will collaborate on The —Ism Youth Files, a project that will focus on writings and interviews with youth ages 12-21 about mental health. The interviews will be used to assemble a collection of monologues, personal essays, poetry and graphic novelettes.
“I heard from friends about the devastating effects the pandemic was having on their children,” Dmae Lo Roberts, executive producer of MediaRites, stated in a press release. “We had previously produced a book of writings from youth about their experiences with mental health, so the board and I thought it was time to create an ebook and podcast about this topic through a national submissions process.”
While a majority of the BIPOC and youth with disabilities are from Portland, 20 writers were selected from outside the Portland area, including Minnesota, Massachusetts and Connecticut (plus one from Kolkata, India). Each writer has received an honorarium payment.
“The —Ism Youth Files has turned into a mentorship project,” Roberts says. “We plan to be in touch with the writers until next year and will be looking out for further opportunities for their creativity. I’m so proud of our producing team and grateful for Oregon Children’s Theatre’s collaboration with us. Our hope is to create more awareness for youth mental health and to break the taboo of silence that still exists.”
MediaRites is also producing four 30-minute podcasts of youth stories, interviews and performances. The —Ism Youth Files shares some similarities with The —Ism Project, a film anthology from MediaRites about race, gender and sexual identity.