DATE: 8 – 9 September 20
COUNTRY: UK, London
During the media training “Let the Roma Youth Be Heard” organised by the Media Diversity Institute, 16 young Roma, Gypsies and Travellers residing in the UK, have produced stories and videos available on YouTube channel.
“When you become famous reporters, please don’t forget that you made your first journalistic steps with Media Diversity Institute”, wrote Milica Pesic, MDI’s Executive Director, in her message to the trainees.
The course that took place on the 8th and 9th of September 2012 in London, is a part of the project “Let the Roma Youth Be Heard”, an exciting 9 month-long multimedia journalism project for young people, by young people.
When asked about his reason to be part of this programme, one of the participants, Jamal Heredia Jimenez answered: “The way Romani and Traveller people are represented in the media is often very bad, but young people already have the access and equipment needed to challenge the way they are reported. This course will breathe life into the phrase“.
The selected trainees were taught by the well-known journalist Jake Bowers who was born into a Romanichel family with 17 other siblings.
He worked with the MDI training course participants under the motto “in order to challenge the media, you have to become media”.
After two-days long training with Jake who has worked for the BBC television and radio, the Guardian, the Independent and many others, young Roma trainees have produced stories about their experiences.
Andreea Cazacu is a 15 years old Romani Romanian college student. She wants to become a well-known journalists and she is ready to work hard to achieve her dream.
Nick Radu is a teacher working with primary school children in East London’s schools.
He is a proud Roma and he produced the story about his first day of school as a teacher.
Artur Conka is a Slovakian Roma that finished his MA in photography and he managed to impress the participants in the course with his talent and ability to tell a different story about the Romani community in Slovakia.
Together with Jamal Heredia Jimenez he made this piece
Robert, 12-years old Romanian boy, was told not to play football for his school team. Watch here why.
Jake Bowers reminded students how the days when the BBC controlled what people watched were truly over, and how nowadays it was social networking sites like Facebook and Youtube that set the agenda. At the end of the course all participants uploaded and broadcasted what they had made. The results can be seen at the Youtube Channel “Roma Youth Be Heard” and Facebook.
The next workshop is going to be in December 2012 and you can visit www.romagazine.eu for future pieces and articles.
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