DONNELL LIBRARY CENTER

NATHAN STRAUS TEEN CENTRAL

20 WEST 53 ^rd STREET

New York , NY 10019

(212) 621 0633

For Immediate Release

Press Release: October 9, 2006

The New York Public Library’s Teen Central Hosts Program on Collaboration between New York City Students and Students in Kenya

On Tuesday, October 17 at 4:30 p.m., Teen Central will be hosting a unique look at Kiboko Projects, a successful cultural exchange program between students from Eleanor Roosevelt High School in New York City and students from Okok Secondary School in Kenya . Students from Eleanor Roosevelt High School will be on hand to discuss their experience with the program and the many various projects they worked on with their Kenyan counterparts. Mark Scheflen, the Artistic Director, and Jill Raufman, Exective Director of the Kiboko Projects, and Michael Stoltz, Art Teacher from Eleanor Roosevelt HS, will introduce the program, which will feature excerpts from documentaries recorded by both sets of teens.

Kiboko Projects focuses on cultural exchanges between secondary school students in Kenya and the United States through storytelling, using such creative art forms such as mask-making, photography, filming and editing videos, and creative writing. Using these tools, the students compare the communities, lives, and issues affecting teenagers in New York and Kisumu , Kenya .

The Okok Secondary School is in a rural area outside Kisumu that has a high percentage of poverty and has been deeply affected by the AIDS pandemic. Some of the topics Kenyan students covered in their books and videos include polygamous households, traditional healers, child labor, and portraits of their daily routines and chores such as fetching water from the river.

As a result of these projects, the students not only gained such skills as photography, shooting and editing film, and mask-making, but then used them to celebrate their cultural heritage and to communicate with youth in other countries.

Wall-to-wall carpeting and wall-to-wall sound are just two of the changes in the transformation of the Nathan Straus Young Adult Center to Teen Central. Along with the largest collection of magazines, hardcover, paperback and recorded books for seventh through twelfth grades there are now circulating collections of popular music CDs and popular films on DVD and VHS. A surround sound stereo system allows playing music from the collection. A quiet study room is available for teens who don't want to work with music in the background. There are two groupings of comfortable lounge chairs--one near the 36-inch TV.

Highlights of the collection include circulating books in Chinese and Spanish, a growing collection of graphic novels and manga and popular anime series on DVD. Our Learner's Advisory Collection provides materials on career and educational choices. There is a permanent exhibit of the titles listed in the Library's annually published list Books for the Teen Age.

Services include Internet access reserved for teens, exhibit space for student artwork and after school programs. Visits by school classes and other groups by appointment are welcome. Call Teen Central at 212 621-0633.

The Donnell Library Center is located at 20 West 53^rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

About The New York Public Library

The New York Public Library was created in 1895 with the consolidation of the private libraries of John Jacob Astor and James Lenox with the Samuel Jones Tilden Trust. The Library provides free and open access to its physical and electronic collections and information, as well as to its services. It comprises four research centers – the Humanities and Social Sciences Library; The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; and the Science, Industry and Business Library – and 87 Branch Libraries in Manhattan , Staten Island, and the Bronx . Research and circulating collections combined total more than 50 million items, including materials for the visually impaired. In addition, each year the Library presents thousands of exhibitions and public programs, which include classes in technology, literacy, and English as a second language. The Library serves some 15 million patrons who come through its doors annually and another 15 million users internationally, who access collections and services through the NYPL website, www.nypl.org.

Contact:          Jennifer Lam (212) 704 8600               Jennifer_Lam@nypl.org       JL:09.06.06:nypl000