There’s an adage that youth are the group most spoken about, but least heard from. It’s time for youth to express themselves- and for adults to listen. Through her work bringing together civic engagement, education and media, Heather Harr has facilitated this process.

After working in network television, Heather coordinated a media literacy project at the Santa Fe Indian School. Returning to Pittsburgh in 2004, Heather launched Greater Pittsburgh Student Voices, a civics engagement initiative for high school students. She also started the Pittsburgh-area Civics Fair, where students compete with political cartoons, videos, essays and civic service-learning projects presented to community leaders.

In 2008, she initiated the Youth Media Justice Initiative with B-PEP (Black Political Empowerment Project), engaging Westinghouse HS youth in analyzing local TV news coverage of teens. In 2009, Heather co-founded the Youth Media Advocacy Project (YMAP) with Dr. Jennifer Snyder-Duch and Dr. James Kelly of Carlow University. Carlow student mentors work with high school students in low-income areas to teach the youth how to use media to create the change they’d like to see in their schools and communities. Heather is also part of the Pittsburgh Youth Media team.