The Highbridge Horizon is a monthly bilingual community advocacy newspaper produced by and for the residents of Highbridge. The mission of the publication is twofold: to galvanize residents to create positive lasting neighborhood change and to provide a forum for residents-especially youth-to learn and develop viable communication skills.

This innovative and dynamic community organizing tool was conceived when residents of southern Highbridge, part of the poorest congressional district in the country, developed a small comprehensive community initiative with the help of Highbridge Community Life Center. This community-based organization, utilizing a grant from the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, has assisted community residents for the past year and a half to develop a vision statement for their community. Resident leaders have identified communication and neighborhood change as critical. The Highbridge Horizon was launched as a means to this change.

Since its birth, the Horizon has been relentless in its mission to mobilize residents to meet the needs of the community. Residents have citied it as the force that has galvanized citizens to slow traffic in front of local schools, ignite Department of Housing Preservation and Development investigations against absentee landlords and bring city-wide attention to crusades to improve city services; through the Horizon, young people have been key players in all of these neighborhood triumphs.

For instance, when the Highbridge Horizon announced "The Great Pothole Hunt" in October '99, dozens of teenagers jumped at the chance to try their hand at community journalism. "The Great Pothole Hunt" challenged children to find the most dangerous potholes in Highbridge, capture them on film, and turn them in to the Horizon. Under close tutelage of a Horizon photographer, twelve teenagers shared three cameras and went hunting. Their photos were featured in the November Horizon accompanied by the Department of Transportation (DOT) pothole hotline. Two days after the pictorial hit the streets-so did the work crews. The DOT and Department of Environmental Protection have filled a total of fifteen potholes in the neighborhood since November 2, 1999.