Loading...

Media plays an important role in raising mass awareness and for using this to receive awareness to address community needs, Child Journalist Groups have been created by ActionAid where children can perform collaborative tasks and draw others' attention to their stories for their community development. Children have been trained on various things through three days of training on ‘child journalism’ organized by ActionAid in the Kallyanpur working area from 16-18 September 2022. A total of 25 children participated in these sessions and they have learned how their in-depth understanding of community problems can lead to the development and keep contributing to change policy if they rightly highlight the issues. Community children are the root level source of information, and their experience is so unique that it can be used for unveiling crucial issues that always remain beyond the mainstream. Preparing these children to take their place in this change process, they are trained to search news or feature issues, develop that, and most importantly reach the different mediums to publish that.

Yeasin (13) shared, “I understand that journalism may the only profession that a child can hold. It’s a very important role as well as an activity for society. I am also delighted to know it can be a profession and if we give effort then within a short time, we can be successful in this field, but we need a careful mind to find elements from what we can see to make news or feature.”

Despite contributing to the newsletter of community editions that circulated yearly through ActionAid’s support, children were provided with knowledge on how they can be part of national publications and share their thoughts in public spheres. Along that, they were trained in photojournalism and operating cameras for news gathering and factors that influence improve the quality of writing.

Shopna (13) said, “Our trainer is a journalist, and I am very motivated to hear his words. He said he will help us build linkage and networking so we can share our stories in the national print media. But we have to do the main job and keep our motivation alive.”