Video project teaching citizenship earns award and will air on public television

AUSTIN, Texas — Jan. 14, 2008 — The American Trustees Project, a statewide program from the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Participation at The University of Texas at Austin, has won a Chris Award from the Columbus International Film & Video Festival for its series of short documentary films to help young people become better citizens.

The documentaries used in the project also will be featured in the community journalism series “Docubloggers,” produced by KLRU, Austin’s PBS, throughout January and February.

A bronze Chris Award was earned in the education and information category and was awarded to the Strauss Institute and University of Texas at Austin radio-TV-film Professor Nancy Schesari who directed and produced the series.

In an effort to inspire youth and improve educational outcomes, the American Trustees Project produced a unique collection of 12 six- to eight-minute documentaries and a complementary set of online standards-based instructional material about ordinary citizens making a difference in their communities. Captivating footage encourages the viewer to discover how citizens are influential in the civic arena, what motivates people to change the world and how they can become trustees of their communities.

These citizens include Cathy Bonner, the women’s rights activist who established the first women’s history museum; Barbara Brown, who at age 12 founded a motor oil recycling program; and Barney Flores, an immigrant farm worker-turned boxer who keeps young people off the streets and out of gangs. Videos can be seen at the American Trustees Website at http://www.americantrusteesproject.org/videos.

The Chris Awards and the Columbus International Film & Video Festival are operated by the Columbus Film Council, which has been encouraging and promoting the use of film and video in all forms of education and communication since 1952. For more information, visit: http://www.chrisawards.org/.

Seven of the 12 American Trustees Project documentaries will be featured in the Emmy Award-winning Docubloggers, a new weekly community journalism series creating a collaborative collage of life in Central Texas.

They will air at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Feb. 21 on KLRU-TV, channel 18, cable channel 9.

The program goes beyond television with an interactive blog, where anyone can post video or present a written glimpse into life in the Central Texas community. More information is available online at: http://www.docubloggers.org/.

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Contact: Deborah Wise
(512) 471-7210