The _iStreet Lab_ is a community multimedia tool box, designed to deliver marginalized communities with the tools and skill required to bridge the digital divide. The lab is a stand-alone, operate-anywhere, music/video/digital media production/broadcasting kit inside a 240-liter wheelie bin.

We believe that even the most socially dysfunctional among us have valuable contributions to make to the development of our community/society, and creative media is one of the best methods of bringing about this productivity. This unique project packs digital media technologies inside a wheelie bin to bring technology to the most marginalized and disadvantaged youth wherever they are—street corner, community centre, shopping mall.

The education and engagement programs built around this technology have had significant success in shifting the youth away from drugs, alcohol and gang violence, putting them on a path to mainstream education and social reintegration. We combined these elements of engaging and teaching with a global perspective to create opportunities for young people to change themselves, their communities and the world, through unique and innovative initiatives that support knowledge exchange, skills building and collaboration.

The _iStreet_ skills-exchange project targets hard-to-reach and marginalized young people and will result in significant long-term outcome for individual participants, organizations and communities involved in the project and contribute to trans-literacy, economic and social development in these communities. All workshops are designed and implemented with this target group in mind. We are seeking to refine and design the delivery so there are lessons to be learned from each interaction as the participants themselves fashion their own learning and reinterpret their own margins. Within the _iStreet Lab_ it is our intention to create the technology and accessories necessary for us to break through the glass ceiling and finally go where no one has gone before.

The project was initiated in Jamaica in 2008 as a response to the rising levels of crime and violence in Palmers Cross Clarendon. In 2010/11 this method was successfully implemented in Queensland and New South Wales, Australia, with other outreach workshops and appearances in Canada and the UK. 

Links: http://edgeqld.org.au/blog/2011/11/01/launching-the-lab/ http://istreetlab.ning.com/ http://www.dlux.org.au/cms/istreet.html http://istreetbhae.ning.com/ http://www.container-project.net/iStreetComic/Comic.html

**iStreet Lab** has been initiated by Mervin Jarman], a community art activist, and a founding member of the UK’s Mongrel Collective (www.mongrel.org.uk) who in 2003 initiated _The Container Project_ (www.container-project.net), a community media lab in a 40ft shipping container in rural Jamaica. The _iStreet Lab_ core team is an extended group of some 20 multimedia artist and technology developers who act as facilitators on demand for the project. The project acts primarily as a sensitization process and has included over 400 young people worldwide.