With the theme, “An Exploration of Creative Minds for Future Media”, the InSPIRE project brings students from three state universities together creating a culturally diverse community and networking them to become responsible digital media personnel in the future.
As a part of the Inter-University Competition of InSPIRE (Incubator Spaces for Promoting Information Rights and Freedom of Expression) project which is funded by European Union, Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum (SDJF) in partnership with HELVETAS organises practical training workshop series for university students from the Faculties of Arts in selected four universities in Sri Lanka.
One such practical training workshops was concluded in Colombo from February 12 to 14 while promoting inter-university exchange among the students from the Peradeniya, Jaffna and Sri Jayewardenepura Universities. The participation was really high as 44 students participated, 26 from University of Jaffna 14 from University of Peradeniya and 3 from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura (27-Female and 17-Male).
During the inauguration, welcome address and objective of the training program was explained by Azad Mustaffa, Program Director of SDJF and Chandula Kumbukage, Program Manager of Helvetas also addressed the audience highlighting the opportunity these students have with these projects.
Main aspect
The inter-university exchange was the main aspect of the workshop series as all the activities of the sessions focused on promoting inter-cultural exchange. The purpose of the inter-university exchange is to promote pluralism and diversity while competing at the Inter-University Competition of the InSPIRE project in which students will present various media products on mobile photography, mobile video story and digital drama.
While inter-university competition is for students from four universities, Jaffna, Peradeniya, Sri Jayewardenepura and South Eastern to compete, it is also expected that students from different universities will collaborate and contribute to collaborative competition category, mobile video story and do creative collaborative media products.
During the workshop, the SDJF promoted collaborative, inter-ethnic and inter-cultural learning creating synergy between the students from three districts.
During the workshop, well-known trainers Kapila Ramanayaka and Sharfdeen Isbahan introduced the concept of mobile photography. They taught students various aspects of vertical and horizontal photography, lighting, options in their mobile cameras,editing software for mobile photo editing and theoretical aspects, and many more.
The students learned the theoretical aspects of mobile photography and applied the learnings then and there in several practical trainings. The students were mentored and motivated to do photo stories.
This is part of the process of making them responsible digital citizens who are aware about the Right to Information and Freedom of Expression.
Art as Inter-ethnic Groups
Groups of students worked together and created art pieces. This was an extra challenge for the students which was to strengthen the intra-group and inter-ethnic and inter-cultural communication.
As the students shared the experiences of the challenge, they explained that they participated in the challenge as one, just like one country and one nation.