Young Journalists from Different Communities to Make Collaborative Stories

Thirty-four young journalists and media students attended a three-day orientation from November 2-4 in Colombo on the use of collaborative multimedia storytelling to focus on concerns of marginalized populations. The orientation also focused on cultural diversity, gender and conflict-sensitive storytelling, and media ethics and was organized through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-supported Media Empowerment for a Democratic Sri Lanka (MEND) program.

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 as well as a stipend during production.

The MEND program is funded by USAID and implemented in partnership with the International Research Exchange Board (IREX) and the Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum (SDJF).

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.