Funded by the ChevronTexaco Foundation, "Telling Lives Project: September 11 Stories" is an innovative collaboration between leaders in the fields of oral history, education, trauma therapy, and public history. It is based on two successful after-school pilot projects in Brooklyn and Chinatown conducted by the OHRO in 2003. The aim of the project is to build community and individual resilience among middle-school youth through encouraging them to listen to and tell the stories of their ancestors, their community leaders, and elders in Chinatown. The ChevronTexaco Foundation funded the project with an interest in exploring the value of oral history as an alternative to traditional Western therapies for youth and others affected long-term by catastrophic events such as September 11.
OHRO and NYU are working with the Museum of the Chinese in the Americas and Downtown Community Television to develop youth-created artworks, books, videos, and exhibits based on first-person interviews with elders and leaders in the communities of Chinatown. Columbia University and NYU are working with students and faculty at IS 126 and MS 131 in New York City. The exhibit opening of the student work is scheduled for Saturday, June 12, 2004 from 4:30-6:00pm at Silk Road Mocha at 30 Mott Street. For more information contact Danielle Grillo at (212) 263-2479.
"This unique partnership allows us to support schools, youth, and families in the delicate process of living with the aftermath of September 11, 2001," said Mary Marshall Clark, Director of the Oral History Research Office. "We are deeply grateful to the ChevronTexaco Foundation
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Contact: Catherine Watts Collier
Catherine.Collier@med.nyu.edu
212-263-3652
New York University Child Study Center
19-May-2004