“Freedom of Expression has changed - Learning to express Creatively and Uniquely.”

Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum (SDJF) organized a two-day workshop on 29th & 30th January, 2022 on Cartoon and Doodling expression for students from the Department of Media Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Jaffna. This was a part of workshop series to be conducted for media students from the four state universities such as University of Peradeniya, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, University of Jaffna and University of South-Eastern with the aim of creating a responsible future media citizen under the Incubator Spaces for Promoting Information Rights and Freedom of Expression (InSPIRE) project.

The InSPIRE project is planning to provide an opportunity for the media students to have hands on experience with new media tools from the media experts in the field and connect media students through a network regardless of their language, religion, ethnic & regional background to share common values. SDJF is planning to offer 10 types of media production practical trainings and mentorship for these students and enable them to be experienced & responsible future media citizens to face the new challenges in their field.  

Twenty nine media students ( F-19, M-10) actively took part in this training program from the Jaffna university. The program is facilitated and mentored by Mr. Saranga Narampanawa , Ms.Ruwanthi D and Dr.MC. Rasmin.

The students learned basics of doodle art, white board animation, simple graphics, free mobile apps for sketch and  techniques to express creatively using doodle art through interactive training methodology, individual exercises, group works and individual assignments.

On the day 2, students were divided in to groups based on their interested topics such as child rights, gender-based violence, gender equality, child abuse and women’s rights, and asked to express their idea creatively by using their learning from the day 1. The students were mentored and supported individually during the process to overcome their challenges and difficulties during this practical exercise.

At the end of the exercise, the students produced 29 doodle arts, their first ever doodle arts as an output of this training program. Each student was given an opportunity to present their product to the trainers and trainers also provided their critical comments on the area of creativity, uniqueness, attractiveness and key message denoted to further fine tune their drawings.

The training evaluation revealed that 85% of increase of their knowledge on cartoon and doodle expression.

“From this workshop, I learned how to use doodle art and animation to visually convey problems and issues in my community. Even people who don’t have an educational background can still look at doodle art and understand what the image is trying to convey,” said Yogeswaran Jovarnan, a Media Studies student from the University of Jaffna who participated at the workshop.

The participants will produce their own doodle art for the inter university competition with the coaching and mentorship from SDJF on freedom of expression, digital citizenship, information rights and women in new media themes.

The activity is implemented as part of the Incubator Spaces for Promoting Information Rights and Freedom of Expression (InSPIRE) project funded by the European Union and implemented by Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum and Helvetas.

For more information please visit www.ldjf.org