About the Project

LaTosha Brown and Derrick Evans (Turkey Creek Community Innitiatives, Gulf Coast Fund) visit Rosina Phillipe of Grand Bayou on a video shoot for Bridge the Gulf

BRIDGE THE GULF is a citizen journalism and new-media initiative designed to help Gulf Coast communities convey their stories and their vision for a just, healthy and sustainable future.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, many endangered Gulf Coast communities felt their stories had been overlooked or misrepresented. With funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, this beta Website was launched in the summer of 2010.

The video below about the origins of BRIDGE THE GULF was created by the Producers Institute for New Media Technologies.

Bridge The Gulf from Leah on Vimeo.

BRIDGE THE GULF aims to:

•   Provide a shared forum for ideas and conversations among Gulf Coast community leaders, activists and organizations.

•   Support grassroots participation by inviting diverse Gulf Coast voices to contribute to the blog, providing mentorship and technical assistance to aspiring citizen journalists through a Media Fellows program and partnerships with organizations that provide training.

•   Build partnerships with independent media makers with a commitment to documenting the realities faced by Gulf Coast communities.

•    Educate mainstream media and provide a compelling collective portrait of a vital regional community that shares values of citizen leadership, sustainability and ecological health.

•    Educate American citizens and policy makers by putting a human face on complex challenges; demonstrate that positive change is taking place; and raise expectations for what can be accomplished.

BRIDGE THE GULF is a partnership between media makers and Gulf Coast citizen leaders. A filmmaker who has been working since 2001 on a documentary about the Mississippi Gulf Coast community of Turkey Creek, has been coordinating the project. The Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health is a primary partner, connecting the project to a network of community advisors and 200 grantee organizations.

More than 20 blog Contributors representing a variety of Gulf Coast issues provide commentary, photo essays and videos. BRIDGE THE GULF Media Fellows create original content for the Website (blog posts, videos, photography), recruit new Contributors to the blog, provide Contributors with training and mentorship, build and maintain partnerships, and help evaluate and improve the project at all levels. Contributing filmmakers have conducted interviews and created short documentaries with citizen leaders across the coast. A collaboration with the Natural Resources Defense Council and StoryCorps produced "Stories from the Gulf,"a series of interviews and photo essays about citizens impacted by the BP oil disaster. A compilation of these was screened at the Environmental Film Festival in Washington, D.C. All of the videos can be found on a Story Map of the Gulf Coast.

We know Bridge the Gulf will grow and improve with your contributions and ideas. If you have suggestions about the site please send an email to us at the address below.

Thank you for your interest and please support the project by contributing your story or spreading the word within your community!

Contact:

Questions and Comments: bridgethegulfproject@gmail.com