Local high school students have until Dec. 6 to apply for a mentoring project that will connect youth in Belfast, Ireland with their peers in the U.S., including Maplewood.

The project—WeSeeTheWorld.org—is the brainchild of Thomas Owens, director of the Community in Schools New Jersey Mentoring Success Center in Newark, NJ. The idea of We See the World is to help youth from challenging backgrounds get engaged with learning using nontraditional, nonformal learning methods—for instance, giving them flip cameras to record themselves and connecting them with other kids a few thousands miles away.

According to Owens, every six weeks, all the students in the program come together in a video-conferenced town hall meeting and discuss topics. The topic for the segment is then selected by a "board" under the guidance of Owens. The students then go off in their groups, armed wth a flip camera, to create a 3-5 minute video on the chosen topic. The videos are then viewed by the leaders and broken down and also posted to the website. Then the kids are brought together again in another video-conference to discuss the results. New topics will be introduced every six weeks, each culminating in a "virtual town hall" with all participants.

A preliminary run-through of the project this past September had kids commenting on the effects of violence in their lives. Students from Newark participated in this trial through New Jersey Communities in Schools New Jersey and the help of its President Gwendolyn Corrin.

Owens' counterpart in Northern Ireland, Stephen Hughes of YouthWorks CIC in Belfast, describes the project his way: "Education in the United States and Ireland is a process that can often alienate and exclude young people from the most challenging backgrounds. This project enables young people to develop both formal and informal education skills that will enhance their understanding of life-long learning and potential employment. ... [W]e support and enable young people to develop skills around research, debating, workshop, conferencing and communication, all skills for the 21st century that enable the young person to effect positive change in their own lives."

Locally, HK Community Fund is helping to bring the project to Maplewood — and South Orange. The pilot of the program includes five sites: Belfast, Newark, Dayton, Pheonix and Maplewood.

How does Maplewood fit in with these big cities?

Stephanie Jelley and Tom Kerns, the founder of HK Community Fund, explained the reasons for our town's inclusion at the HK Community Center on Friday.

According to Jelley, Owens reached out to her. Besides working with HK Community Fund, Jelley has her own firm Contour Marketing & Media with partner Susan Serritella as well as the website maplewoodmuse.com. Last year, one of Jelley's projects — a video shot by kids for JasmineV under the auspices of Loovatoo and JelleyJoint went viral, resulting in airings on MTV and touring with Justin Bieber. Owens saw the video and tweeted Jelley. She's been working with his group in Newark ever since.

Beyond the Jelley/Owens connection, there are other reasons for Maplewood and South Orange's inclusion. Jelley spoke of how the other participating cities are more homogeneous in their populations. "We have everything, all ethnicities, we are the bridge community," explained Jelley. "And also, Maplewood and South Orange have the reputation not just of diversity but of getting very involved."

Jelley and Kerns are looking for 10 local high school students for the pilot program which should launch early in the new year and end in June. The criteria are:

• eligibility to the South Orange-Maplewood school district (you do not need to be enrolled in the district, just eligible to do so)
• high school students only (grades 9, 10 and 11)
• the willingness and ability to give 35 hours of community service over the course of the school year

Kerns and Jelley ask students interested in applying NOT write long essays explaining why they should be included. "It is an interview process," said Kerns. "Stephanie and I will make final selections based on who fits well with the program." He added, "A big part of the selection will be the sense of commitment we get from the student."

The deadline for application is Monday, Dec. 6. Send your name and contact information to Kerns and Jelley via email. Use the subject line "We See the World Application" and include your name, grade, school and parent contact.

The local group will gather at the HK Foundations Center (better known as "The Center") at 515 Valley St. (the old Hammond Map building). Jelley said, although the program relies on virtual connections through videoconferencing, "It's our goal to facilitate our children who will pilot to actually sit and meet and interact with the students from Newark."

And Jelley sees this as a very long-range project. "I want to follow the effect it has on the kids—follow them through to college and maybe even after that."