ImMEDIAte Justice
"Constantly, constantly there's a lack of resources in our communities. So it's really about figuring out how to tell our stories by any means necessary."
-Tani Ikeda, Making Your Story Webinar
ImMEDIAte Justice is a volunteer-led organization that teaches girls how to tell their own stories, particularly around sex education. Tani Ikeda and Sylvia Raskin co-founded ImMEDIAte Justice as a summer camp for girls in South Central Los Angeles in 2008, but the organization has grown tremendously and now holds camps and workshops all around the world. ImMEDIAte Justice emphasizes mentoring relationships between young women and media industry professionals. Their workshops aim to give youth, particularly girls, the media literacy skills to tell stories at various levels of production and to have confidence in speaking about sexuality and sex education.
ImMEDIAte Justice's main focus is on sex education and media literacy. In sex education, they emphasize female, queer, and sex-positive perspectives that go beyond the information available to students in most American schools. ImMEDIAte Justice's goal in their media literacy efforts is to build mentoring relationships between young women and media professionals.
The Not Your Mama's Sex Ed video is a key example of ImMEDIAte Justice's work with young women in workshops. Summer workshop attendees directed and shot this video themselves with the help of film industry mentors. It takes a frank, humorous approach to questions and experiences many girls may have but are afraid to ask about, like masturbation.
Those interested in learning more or connecting with imMEDIAte Justice may contact co-founder and executive director Tani Ikeda directly at: tani@taniikeda.com
Contributed by Samantha Close on 5/10/14