CPT12 Receives Colorado Creative Industries Colorado Creates Grant to Create Civil Rights Documentary and Web Content

Denver (October 23, 2014) – Colorado Public Television (CPT12, Channel 12 PBS) has been awarded a $10,000 Colorado Creative Industries (CCI), a division of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade. This grant was awarded through CCI’s Colorado Creates Program to develop content that follows the existing civil rights collaboration program between the Center for Digital Storytelling, Warm Cookies of the Revolution, the Buntport Theater and East High School of Denver Public Schools.

CPT12 will document our partner’s work via guided workshops focused on producing digital storytelling and augmenting community dialogue, prominent civil rights community activists and 18-20 East High School students will create compelling personal narratives. These narratives will then be used to create a historically inspired original East High School live theater production.

This program, shaped by students and community members, will illustrate how different generations make themselves heard through personal storytelling of their own journeys toward social justice. These are two populations that do not typically enter into dialogue with each other but by working together the seeds of activism and social/civic responsibility will be planted.

The Colorado Creates Program is a state grant that is awarded through a competitive process. This grant signifies that Colorado Public Television provides a high-level of quality in its programs, community service and administrative ability.

“The combination of civil rights and art through dialog and storytelling is a compelling use of Colorado’s arts investment,” said Colorado Senator Mike Johnston. “Adding the dimension of young people and older citizens working together to inform the story and we all stand to benefit from this collaboration.”

“CPT12 is so pleased to add another chapter to our already robust education initiatives,” said Kim Johnson, President and General Manager of Colorado Public Television. “Along with our multi-year American Graduate work and our student debate series, “Both Sides of the Story,” CPT12 continues to help young people connect on a meaningful level with issues in our communities and create new narratives that provide context and understanding to Colorado.”

CPT12 will document the workshops and the play (including the development of the play and its rehearsals) to capture the community’s process of connection to and discovery about civil rights, and to make the experience accessible to CPT12’s audience via broadcast and web.

Through this cross-generation examination of civil rights, and learning multi-dimensional, creative ways to communicate values, community and student participants will become better equipped to advocate for their values, take leadership in the face of adversity and become civic participants in their local communities.