Welcome to the Take A Stand movement!

The Take A Stand campaign uses socially conscious media to inspire positive action towards bettering yourself and your community. We give a platform to those who have either overcome adversity or have been moved to action in an innovative way. Take A Stand forms conversations around important topics and captures your stories through personal dialogues, collective action in the community, and creating and posting videos.

The story behind the top Take A Stand video will be made into a short film by an award-winning production team and other short films will be placed on the Bilal’s Stand DVD for distribution! This is your chance to tell your story and share it with the world.

Inspiration for Take A Stand

The film Bilal’s Stand was made as part of a youth program in Detroit called EFEX (Encouraging the Filmmaking EXperience) that provides educational and life skills through the process of filmmaking.  With a shoestring budget and little faith from critics, hundreds of community members engaged in completing a film that has since accepted to the prestigious Sundance Film Festival.

Bilal’s Stand is an inspiring true story that focuses on educational inequalities, class, race, spirituality, and the boldness needed to pursue a dream. Now proceeds from Bilal’s Stand will help fund the Take A Stand campaign as well as the development of further educational youth film programs around the country like EFEX.

Bilal’s Stand follows a Detroit high school senior who is destined to take up the family taxi stand business.  But after secretly submitting a college application and pursuing an ice carving scholarship, he is forced to decide whether he will continue working at “the Stand”— the only life he’s ever known — or take a chance at social mobility.