This Week at NIOT

A few of us were in tears in the editing room today as the team put the finishing touches on our DVD and web feature of Patchogue-Medford librarian Gilda Ramos.

Gilda became a translator for many people in the community who wanted to speak out in the aftermath of Marcelo Lucero’s killing in 2008. You'll see Gilda in many scenes from Not In our Town: Light in the Darkness as well as in the feature which will be available as a DVD and web extra. Check back to NIOT.org and PBS.org/NIOT where we'll present Gilda's story and five new extended features from the film leading up to the broadcast in Sepetmeber. In the meantime, it's been a whirlwind week—and here's some news from this week at NIOT.

Two months away from our PBS broadcast on Sept. 21 and nearly 90 people across the country have signed up to host local screenings of Not In Our Town: Light in the Darkness.

Today, we spoke with civic leaders in West Virginia who will present the Not In Our Town: Light in the Darkness trailer at the West Virginia Municipal League meeting in August. Our goal for the team in West Virginia is to get a dozen events in the state during Not In Our Town Week. 

The San Francisco anti-hate coalition screened clips from the film at their quarterly meeting and some exciting plans are in development  for the San Francisco area. 

If you’re interested in hosting a screening, we will send you a screening DVD and connect you to guides that will help you plan the screening and facilitate a discussion on the film. Sign up to host a screening of the film in your community.

The American Library Association helped us reach out to 53,000 librarians about the new film. 

The Not In Our Town production team finished the sound mix for Not In Our Town: Light in the Darkness and are working with Zoetrope Aubrey Productions to finish post-production edits to the film. The team also finished four DVD extras that include extensive profiles of Patchogue Mayor Paul Pontieri and Patchogue-Medford librarian Gilda Ramos, who are both featured in the film.

Not In Our School has teamed up with the University of San Diego Continuing Education Programs for Educators to allow teachers to receive credit for participating in the Creating Safe and Inclusive Schools series. The series includes a course on organizing a NIOS community project, a strategic lesson planning course on teaching students to be upstanders and creating safe and inclusive communities, a course on implementing those lessons and strategies, and more. For course information and how to register, contact Will Paris, School and Community Engagement Coordinator at wparis@niot.org.