MPB Education and Youth Engagement Project

Note: this is a series of our blog posts looking at stories and activities of PBS Member Stations.

In their Annual Report for 2018, Ronnie Agnew, Mississippi Public Broadcasting's Executive Director sends a message to his audiences in the community, affirming that “At MPB, we take seriously our mission to improve the lives of Mississippians through information that is contextualized, complete and focused on issues that matter most to our citizens.” Four ways that MPB carries out its mission is by focusing on expanding educational opportunity through its “Ready To Learn Initiatives,” promoting early education readiness by participating in Jumpstart’s premiere national campaign, Read for the Record®. MPB’s “BLT Rotary” continued to partner with “The Rotary International District 6820 (Central Mississippi),.which helped MPB extend the reach of the Between the Lions Preschool Literacy Initiative to 219 preschool classrooms, 26 Rotary Clubs, and served more than 2,892 children. MPB’s Digital Learning is another successful program that harnessed new technology to increase new educational opportunities to students regardless of their location.

Finally, through the Youth Media Project (YMP) Engagement Program, MPB successfully supported 29 underserved teenagers, ages 14 to 18, from 16 schools in central Mississippi in a newsroom style laboratory. Using digital technology, these students produced high-quality multimedia projects and shared their own stories of community through rigorous solutions journalism. At MPB, there is a strong commitment to enhance early childhood educational opportunities, support youths to work together, share their voices, and reduce the rate of school dropout.