AVONDALE, Ohio — Behind the lens of her camera, Aurora Oluyemi sees a lot of beauty in her neighborhood.
Every weekend she sets out to capture it, taking to the streets of Cincinnati’s Avondale neighborhood with special care to make sure she highlights parts of the community that don’t often come into focus.
“I wouldn’t call myself a journalist or even an artist,” Oluyemi said. “I’m not sure what I am. Maybe a media activist. I’ll discover it as I go along.”
The footage is for a project she’s calling “A-1 Since Day One,” an hour-long webcast lifting the voices of Avondale.
She started the project in April and released her first episode in December.
Oluyemi is the producer, director, videographer and editor.
She's currently a one-woman crew behind the nonprofit production company, Triple Strength Media.
“I just look at it as using media to be able to get a voice out so that we can change critical issues in our neighborhood,” she said.
Oluyemi’s show has three main segments:
- Highlighting local businesses
- Man on the street interviews allowing locals to show their personality and answer light-hearted questions
- Violence in Avondale so far this year
2020 has been the most violent year in Cincinnati history.
As of late December, police say there have been 90 homicides in the city. Fifteen of them have been in Avondale, more than any other Cincinnati neighborhood.
After the killings, Oluyemi looks for memorials.
There, she said she finds people, loved ones, willing to speak to who these people were.
Oluyemi said her interviews try to highlight the good in them.
“On the news, you just see like bad stuff in Avondale. When somebody got killed, shot. But there’s so much more here like people volunteer to do things here,” she said. “People work hard and they come home and they take care of their children and they work two, three jobs, you know.”
Oluyemi said it’s a lesson she learned herself after moving to Avondale.
She grew up in College Hill and Clifton.
She said she never expected to live in Avondale, but once she did she got involved with the neighborhood council and other local efforts to better the community.
“It’s not like they just want to be complacent they do want better,” she said. “They do want the community to be better. They want you to recognize their quality of life.”
Oluyemi hopes her stories capture that side of Avondale.
She wants to show the neighborhood residents who they are, who they want to be, and how they can get there.