AFJ Launches Summer Youth Employment Program

This past Tuesday, July 5th, Avenues for Justice (AFJ) kicked off our 2022 Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) hosted at our Lower East Side Community Center. Funded by the City of New York, SYEP is the nation’s largest youth employment program, connecting NYC youth and young adults, between the ages of 14 and 24, with career exploration opportunities and paid work experience each summer.

Building on last summer’s successful SYEP Filmmaking Internships, where AFJ had nine Participants supervised by long-time advertising editor Gary Wachter, this year AFJ is hosting 15 Participant interns. The internship is divided into three categories: music production, filmmaking and podcasting. SYEP will last for the next six weeks, culminating in The Andy Awards, where we will celebrate the interns' final projects and accomplishments.

In addition to the hard skills of podcasting, filmmaking, and music production, we are hoping to elevate the soft skills required to excel in the workforce, such as filling out an application, showing up on time, and being accountable for your job. Tuesday’s opening day started with each intern filling out a contract which outlined various terms of employment specific to AFJ. The second half of the application gave each Participant the opportunity to select their preferred department and write a few sentences as to why they chose that particular department. 

Applications were then followed by an interview session where Participants also had the opportunity to ask questions about the internship. These interviews served both as skill development for the participants as well as a chance for the leaders of each department to select a group of participants that they believe would work well together for the summer.‍

On Wednesday morning, Participants arrived at the center to find out which department they had been selected for during the summer – most participants were quite excited about their selection. Each department had a different activity on day one:

• Filmmaking interns worked on a newscast about gun violence, with Participants rotating between the positions of newscaster, cameraman, and sound person.
• Podcasters were incredibly excited to learn about the equipment that they will be using and have already started brainstorming about their final project for the Andy’s.
• Music production interns learned about equipment and the mechanics of how sound travels through a microphone, into the mixer, and back into their headphones.

The summer is off to a fantastic start and we look forward to continually updating you all on the work that we are doing. For daily updates, please follow us on Instagram @avenuesforjustice.