HarlemLive's operating philosophy is to provide its youth with an environment of trust, creative license, and the technological tools for documenting and expressing their realities. The online journal is the tangible outcome of their work. It is an evolving vehicle for learning and sharing perspectives on important news issues of the day. Producing the journal drives the students to consider the world around them and their place in it, with new eyes, as they participate in telling their own stories.

Sending the students out on stories where they meet a wide range of people engaged in various professions, broadens the youths' outlook and understanding of what possibilities and opportunities exist. Furthermore, by using cutting-edge information technologies to publish and broadcast their stories to the world, they gain valuable skills that have helped scores of HarlemLive graduates to get jobs and admission to colleges.

The online journal, with a diverse and global readership is a recognized website by the Daily News, USA Today, Parade, The New York Times and Yahoo!. The site was honored at the 1999 Computerworld Smithsonian Awards in Washington, D.C. and it took first place in the Media and Culture category in the 1999 Global Bangemann Challenge, an international information technology competition held in Stockholm, Sweden. HarlemLive was also featured on the CNN news programs, Newsstand and DotCom.

The site receives letters of praise from readers located in countries as far away as Nigeria, Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Italy, and Brazil. The students have made presentations in Washington, Stockholm, Senegal, Costa Rica, California, and various Universities and High Schools across the country.

HarlemLIVE receives some in kind support from the Institute for Learning Technologies at Teachers College. However, we receive minimal direct financial support. In order to ensure continued success, HarlemLive seeks funding from the private sector.

HarlemLive is a pioneer in the effort to bridge the digital divide. We ask for your support to allow us to empower inner city youth.