The Red Umbrella Project (RedUP) is seeking participants for the...

The Red Umbrella Project (RedUP) is seeking participants for the fourth annual Speak Up! Media Training Intensive Workshop. The workshop was developed for people with experience in the sex trades who want to speak publicly – in mainstream and community produced media – about their experiences in the sex trades and offer their political perspective on issues that affect their communities. The workshop is open to people who have entered the sex trade by choice, circumstance, or coercion, and is designed to support each participant to speak up from their own perspective and on issues that matter to them.

Our seminar teaches people in the sex industry to create strategic responses to media and public events. Participants learn to evaluate press requests, create talking points and stick to them, decide on the best message for the audience, and hold journalists to ethical standards. We cover the skills needed for staying on message while being interviewed, producing press releases and letters to the editor, developing media campaigns, evaluate the risks and rewards of being “out,” and more.

The workshop provides media skills development for individuals with varying goals and experiences. Some participants are writers and want to be able to market themselves and their work better, some work with nonprofit organizations that want to get more media attention for their work on sex workers’ rights, while others have had negative experiences with the media in the past and want to be better prepared, and still others are members of communities that don’t often have a place at the table, even within the sex workers’ rights movement. We are committed to diversity, both in terms of demographics and experiences.

Deadline to apply is Thursday, September 13 at 10 pm EST. Full details and application here.