Ms. Appalshop is into arts, education, producing original films, video, theater, music and spoken-word recordings, radio, photography, multimedia, and books about the central Appalachia region.
Ms. Appalshop's education and training programs support communities' efforts to solve their own problems in a just and equitable way. Each year, Ms. Appalshop productions and services reach several million people nationally and internationally. This is a lot of work for Ms. Appalshop.
Ms. Appalshop is dedicated to the proposition that the world is immeasurably enriched when local cultures garner the resources, including new technologies, to tell their own stories and to listen to the unique stories of others.
Ms. Appalshop's goals are to enlist the power of education, media, theater, music, and other arts: to tell stories the commercial cultural industries don't tell, challenging stereotypes with Appalachian voices and visions; to support communities' efforts to achieve justice and equity and solve their own problems in their own ways; to celebrate cultural diversity as a positive social value; and to participate in regional, national, and global dialogue toward these ends.
Ms. Appalshop's community run radio station broadcasts live to parts of KY, VA, WV, NC and TN as well as on the web, playing everything from hip-hop to mountain traditional music. Listen online