FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Youth Media Sanctuary
The Sanctuary for Independent Media 3361 6th Avenue in North Troy, New York mailing address: PO Box 35 Troy, NY 12181 Phone: (518) 272-2390 Contact: Branda Miller e-mail: [email protected]
Troy, NY – Denise Ramos, 22, was 14 years old when she had her son Nijear. Ramos shares her story in her film “A Child Having a Child” (running time 5’48”). Ramos took part in the Youth Media Sanctuary project with NY Media Alliance and the Missing Link Street Ministry. The film premiered at the NY Shout Out Youth Media Film Festival, June 5, 2010.
“Youth Media Sanctuary” is a new community arts project in North Central Troy, one of upstate New York’s most troubled urban areas. Based on a prototype youth media summer camp held in 2008 and a pilot peer-training program currently underway, this initiative is designed to teach multimedia skills to young people on the margins of city life and to help develop urgently needed independent local voices in our economically devastated neighborhood.
According to the Get the Facts NY , http://www.getthefactsny.org/ (a project of Family Planning Advocates of New York State (FPA) and the Planned Parenthood Affiliates of New York State.)
• 110 teenage girls will become pregnant today.
• 1 in 4 teenage girls has a sexually transmitted infection according to the Centers for Disease Control.
• More than 6 in 10 high school students will have sex before they graduate. 
Ramos hopes this film will educate teens to get help before they get pregnant. She talks about how Teenager Opportunity program helped her to be a better parent.
Denise shares: “I’d like to use media to teach young teens that are having kids now.”