Free Spirit Media

Established in 2001, Free Spirit Media (FSM) is a youth development and media organization that provides teens and young adults on Chicago’s West Side with comprehensive training in media literacy and hands-on media production. FSM conducts in-school arts education, after-school and summer digital media programs, and creative workforce development opportunities that reach more than 250 youth each year in the North Lawndale, South Lawndale, East Garfield Park, West Garfield Park, and Austin communities of Chicago. Programs include Teen Media, which engages youth aged 14-18 in scripting, editing, camerawork, audio engineering, performance, industry vocabulary, and critical media literacy. Its Creative Pathways program offers young adults advanced training in film, television, online media, career mentoring, and professional production work. This award provides general operating support to FSM in the Culture, Equity, and the Arts area of the Chicago Commitment strategy.

Free Spirit Media (FSM) is a Chicago-based youth development and media organization that provides teens and young adults on Chicago’s south and west sides with a comprehensive foundation in media literacy and hands-on media production. This grant provides general operating support for FSM to conduct in-school arts education, offer after school and summer digital media programs, and provide advanced creative workforce development opportunities. Through its programming, FSM is committed to helping youth find their individual potential, and it strives to create professional pathways for youth on Chicago’s south and west sides into the media and creative arts industries.

Free Spirit Media (FSM) is a Chicago-based youth development and media organization that provides teens and young adults in communities of color on Chicago’s South and West sides with a comprehensive foundation in media literacy and hands-on media production experience. This grant strengthens and expands Real Chi Youth, FSM’s new experimental "learning newsroom" for young adults, ages 18 to 25 who are interested in learning to produce high-quality, solutions-oriented, community journalism. Its goal is to provide reporting that is relevant to historically underserved communities on the South and West sides of Chicago while training a new generation of journalists and media professionals living and working in the communities where they grew up.