The SPEL fall semester has begun!
By hola | Published | No Comments
After a summer of advancing exciting Latine arts and environmental justice reporting projects, it was great to kick off a new semester of Hola Cultura’s youth-powered newsroom this fall.
On Sept. 23, approximately two dozen teenagers and young adults met online for their first session of our Storytelling Program for Experiential Learning (SPEL). We published the group’s first story last week — Hola Cultura’s annual Day of the Dead coverage — with more new stories coming soon.
This is the 18th semester since SPEL started in January 2020. That means this fall, Hola Cultura is coasting toward completion of five impactful years of SPEL, producing half of our original stories about Latine arts, culture and community.
SPEL gives interns a chance to apply key professional skills and try out real-world roles such as writer, editor and social media manager. As interns learn new skills and expand their networks, they also produce stories for the community.
For many, it’s their first opportunity to publish their work and build a portfolio that can help with college or job applications. Each week, SPEL participants meet and learn together through story labs and professional development, taking home remote work that guides them through the story production process.
On October 9, interns based in the D.C. area joined us for a celebration of D.C.’s Latine murals that we hosted with the DC Preservation League.
If you are between the ages of 16 and 25 and would like to be considered for a SPEL internship, we recruit three times a year. The application portal will open later this month for the Spring 2026 semester starting in January.
But we need readers too! So even if you don’t want to write for Hola Cultura, we’ll continue to publish new stories, interviews, book reviews, recipes and more for you every week — each one crafted with care by interns or the other community members we work with. It’s a pleasure to bring the world these true and uplifting stories and use our words to expose social issues and inequities — work that will endure, come what may over the next few years.
Our pledge to you is to keep bringing you stories in English and Spanish week after week, as we navigate these uncertain times together. So come back again soon!
If you are in a position to donate to Hola Cultura, please do so today. Community support plays a vital role in our work. Donations, large and small, power our mission to uplift the community and defeat stereotypes. Please join forces with us with a donation that will go directly to keeping SPEL and other programs going.
– Copy edited by Kami Waller
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