History

In the Beginning...
The ideas behind VOX Teen Communications — engaging us teens in writing and publishing about our lives and communities — began more than 30 years ago in Chicago high schools. Teachers there began inviting students to write stories about the issues that were most important to them. Such hands-on teaching techniques helped teens improve their reading and writing skills, as well as helped them realize that their voices mattered.

More than a decade later, in 1989, the United States Supreme Court ruled that high schools can censor student newspapers, one of the few places where our voices could be heard. Teens across the country responded by forming independent, uncensored, large-circulation publications with the help of adults. Since then, the concept has spread and now successfully engages youth in communities including Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Washington D.C. and Atlanta.

Why VOX ... Why Now?
—metro Atlanta's only newspaper created by and for teens. We chose the name because it means "voice" in Latin.

The VOX program responds to the sense of powerlessness and isolation that we teens often feel every day by giving us a voice in our community. By publishing our original writing and artwork in the VOX newspaper and on this Web site, facilitating workshops for our peers, and leading outreach activities in our communities, we develop many skills and gain a sense of connection and community we have a hard time finding elsewhere.

VOX Today
The first edition of VOX, published more than 13 years ago, reached about 12,000 teens, teachers and parents. Today, the VOX newspaper reaches 80,000 readers at more than 250 local high schools and community-based organizations

Over that span, VOX has grown into a powerful community resource, with more than 100 teens actively involved each year, supported by five adult staff and several dozen active adult volunteers. Teen staff members represent six metro Atlanta counties and more than 40 different metro-area schools.

But some fundamental things have not changed. Just as in 1993, we teens who participate in VOX's program gain life-long journalism, art, leadership and community-service skills.

We at VOX collaborate with other organizations to strengthen services for youth in our community. Partnerships have included peer-writing workshops and readings with the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice and several foster care group homes, a teen show at the Center for Puppetry Arts, peer writing and cross-cultural exchanges with refugee and immigrant youth, and a By Teens/For Teens Resource Guide in collaboration with the United Way and the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention.

Programs are organized and planned by us teens with support from trained adults, both after school during the week and on Saturdays. The main program is the VOX newspaper and Web site, which provides an outlet for us to learn the arts of writing, photography, design, editing and teamwork among a diverse staff of our peers — to positively impact an even broader, more diverse audience of teen readers.

The organization is governed by a dedicated Board of Directors comprised of business and civic leaders, as well as teen participants. In 2005, the Board decided to change the name of our organization from Youth Communication: Metro Atlanta to VOX Teen Communications to better use the well-known name of our primary program and to increase knowledge of our organization around the community.