Programs
EcoTalk is an environmental podcast co-produced by Communities of Hope and EcoRI. Hosted by Jack Aviles and Sam Elwell, EcoTalk is a discussion of Southern New England’s economy, ecology, and ecosystems. Each episode covers a different topic relating to environmental justice, sustainability, biology, and more. Listen and learn more about different aspects of the world around you and how you can help better it!
The Hope Project is a solutions-oriented, social justice, history, and culture audio and video documentaries produced by Communities of Hope. Every semester, RWU students work with professional journalists, community members, and experts to tell the hidden histories of how things became the way they are and how they can change for the better.
Transforming Roger is a training ground for transformative investigative journalists. Produced by RWU journalism students and staff, Transforming Roger uses multimedia reporting to look at our institution’s past and current practices through a justice lens, so we can make RWU better for all our communities, on and off campus.
The first iteration of Hope Squad was a pre-professional, year-long training program for K-12 students in new approaches, methods, and technologies in transformative journalism. During the 2022-2023 academic year, the first cohort of Hope Squad, with 18 students, met once a month on Zoom and during the SPJ Region 1 Summer Journalism Institute. During each meeting, students learned directly from a specialized professional and workshop their own stories.
The program has not been offered again since, but we hope to have a new version of Hope Squad in the future.
Hope Lab is a fellowship training program in which different cohorts, varying from school teachers to community members and media professionals, receive specialized training customized for their needs and goals. Our first cohort (2022-2023) was a year-long program directed at high school teachers, advisors, and mentors who were running or wanted to create a news organization for teen journalists. This cohort focused on how to teach the same skills, techniques, knowledge, and practices as we apply in Communities of Hope Civic Media, from data reporting and solutions journalism to how to manage a community-oriented newsroom for teens.
Future cohorts of Hope Lab may include local organizations looking to improve their professional training offerings, such as nonprofit organizations working with refugees, houseless, disabled people, retirees, K-college programs, incarcerated people, diaspora communities, and media professionals looking to improve their skills in reparatory, restorative (healing), solidarity, engagement, solutions, empowerment, and community-driven journalism (among others)i and improve their own quality of life by improving their communities with civic information, education, and engagement.