So, if you are regular reader of It’s Getting Hot in Here, you may have noticed that I have been a little absent recently. Why, you might ask, as what could be more exciting than sharing information with the youth climate movement? Well, I have been working on a project behind-the-scenes that I want to share with you all.

I have been working on launching Fired Up Media. Let me take you for a spin. Fired Up Media just won Project Slingshot for our Youth Action TV proposal, so we are terrifically excited and want to tell all of you about what we are doing!

What is Fired Up Media? Fired Up Media is a growing network of videographers, editors, and journalists reporting from the front lines of the youth climate movement and disseminating through the Fired Up Virtual Newsroom. The network has grown out the diverse media projects of the youth climate movement, such as It’s Getting Hot in Here, I Shot Power Shift, and CSSC TV.

Fired Up Media is harnessing dynamic advances in digital communications and new media, creative social entrepreneurship, and existing youth media on and off-campus to build a revolutionary media network. Read more here.

What do we do? Fired Up Media is launching two major projects this summer, Fired Up: Youth Action TV and Fired Up Africa.

Read more after the fold.

Fired Up: Youth Action TV

The Concept: Fired Up is a periodical 5-minute video news segment on climate change, energy, and activism produced by a network of young producers/editors from around the country.

The Story: Stories will cover youth issues ranging from education, to politics, to jobs and the economy, to entertainment and culture - all through the lens of the most important challenges facing young people: the impact of global warming and the construction of a cleaner, more just economy and society.

New Media Story Submission and Selection: Fired Up will solicit stories from youth groups and organizations from around the United States in the format of a 250-500 word narrative and an accompanying photo. Stories will be published online on the Fired Up website and syndicated to It’s Getting Hot in Here - dispatches from the youth climate movement. Fired Up’s reporting teams will select stories of particular merit and interest. Once news segments are produced and aired, they will be uploaded to the web and posted to Fired Up affiliate sites along with the original story that inspired the episode.

Fired Up Africa

Fired Up Africa is an international media training program aimed at telling the African youth perspective on climate change. This division of Fired Up Media will partner with One World and the Earth Journalism Network to provide African youth with the technology and the training to create video, audio, and written pieces for distribution to online and traditional media outlets. The development and implementation of low-cost media technology will expand communications capacity for youth community-based sustainable development projects around the globe. By creating a network of incredible youth leaders from across the world trained in new media technology, and working with other divisions of Fired Up Media to widely distribute media outputs from this network, we can ensure all voices of the youth movement are heard.

So what do we need from all of you to make this a success?

We are going to need everybody’s incredible stories, once we are up-and-running, but in the interim - I would love to talk with anybody who is interested about our big idea, whether you want to profile it, you are interested in joining, or following the project - Subscribe to Fired Up Media by Email. Lastly, we need what every new project needs - money - or more exactly: pledges. We are hoping to match the $10,000 project slingshot award with individual donors. If you are feeling generous, please donate. If you have a project or funding idea, please contact me, richardb.graves[at]gmail[dot]com.