Thirty-four young journalists and media students attended a three-day orientation recently in Colombo on the use of collaborative multimedia storytelling to focus on concerns of marginalised populations. The orientation also focused on cultural diversity, gender, conflict-sensitive storytelling, and media ethics.
It was organised through the Media Empowerment for a Democratic Sri Lanka (MEND) program funded by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented in partnership with the International Research Exchange Board (IREX) and the Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum (SDJF). Following the orientation, each participant paired with a partner from a completely different ethnic, language, religious and geographic background.
Going forward, each pair will host each other for a week and produce stories on issues affecting each other’s communities.
These productions will be disseminated widely through various multimedia platforms.
The journalists have also received practical tool-kits to use during their field production while plans are underway to provide them with remote mentoring during production.
The aim of the Fellowship program was to help young journalists to discover and break their cultural barriers - gender, ethnic, religious, age and geography, in telling a story on issues affecting a community other than his/her own.
It will also provide young journalists an opportunity to strengthen cross-cultural understanding, engage marginalized communities in the process of making stories, and promote inclusion, diversity and dialogue through the stories.
Sunday Observer journalists Indunil Usgoda Arachchi, and Indusara Pathirana participated in the program.