So the CMP course has come to a close, and I had imagined myself feeling swollen with joy and excitement to be rid of the entire process. But this is simply not the case, and I am not entirely sure why. I feel a gentle sadness when I realise that the CMP process has ended and we shall play no further part in it for this year.
It's like having a stray dog staying with you for a while. At first you are not very enthusiastic in getting involved, but then time passes, and when it comes time for the stray dog to leave, you feel a minor anguish in letting go. This being the case, I feel optimistic in saying that we made a difference to the communities we were involved with. We set out, rather hesitantly, with the intentions of uncovering a few problems facing our communities. We did not know it at the time, but we would uncover a host of issues and pains that our fellow Grahamstownians live with on a daily basis. Of course we had to be realistic in our hopes of making a difference. We could not do very much about the lack of RDP housing, or the power cuts they face every few hours. However, we did focus our energies and hopes on making a change that was possible. We set out to try and shed some light on the lack of activities available to the youth within the community, and we accomplished this through a highly successful soccer tournament on an overcast but warm Saturday.We gave the community some attention; attention they had been starved of for a very long time.
In my opinion, Group For78, we did our job. We did it well.
Opening the door to change
Friday, October 22, 2010
Time to say goodbye
By: Alexandra Smith
The JDD-CMP course as a whole was itself both a wonderful and challenging experience. It allowed us the opportunity to experience a new form of journalism which was public journalism.
I was at first very nervous about going into a community and trying to identify problems within a community which are very prevalent and important to them and not being able to solve them. There was a hostility felt by the community when we entered as they felt that we were coming into their space and taking stories from them without giving anything back to them. This was one of the main concerns for our group and myself as we wanted to get involved as much as we could with the community, build relationships and try to give back to them in some way or form. During the Civic Mapping process we found that the main issues were that of housing, the bucket system and the lack of resources available to young children and teens. We did not have it in our power to address the main issues as we were not seen to harness that amount of influence and power. We decided to tackle the issues of the lack of resources in the community which had a direct impact on the children who lived there. As a writer the aim was to provide an insight into the problems and try and see if the municipality was aware of them in order to provide solutions. The stories that were written were published in the Grocott’s which reaches a large audience.
In an order to try and create a form of sustainable development we initiated and organised a soccer day for the children in the community. Community member mobilised teams of soccer players and the day was an over all success.
The entire experience I agree was a very worthwhile one, as I felt that journalists need to be in contact with the community as they are often overlooked. I did feel that the course was very time consuming and it was often difficult to manage all the work and demands put on us. I did learn how to handle sources and engage with people in positions of authority. I hope that the work that we did will have a significant impact and result in some form of change or sustainable development.
The JDD-CMP course as a whole was itself both a wonderful and challenging experience. It allowed us the opportunity to experience a new form of journalism which was public journalism.
I was at first very nervous about going into a community and trying to identify problems within a community which are very prevalent and important to them and not being able to solve them. There was a hostility felt by the community when we entered as they felt that we were coming into their space and taking stories from them without giving anything back to them. This was one of the main concerns for our group and myself as we wanted to get involved as much as we could with the community, build relationships and try to give back to them in some way or form. During the Civic Mapping process we found that the main issues were that of housing, the bucket system and the lack of resources available to young children and teens. We did not have it in our power to address the main issues as we were not seen to harness that amount of influence and power. We decided to tackle the issues of the lack of resources in the community which had a direct impact on the children who lived there. As a writer the aim was to provide an insight into the problems and try and see if the municipality was aware of them in order to provide solutions. The stories that were written were published in the Grocott’s which reaches a large audience.
In an order to try and create a form of sustainable development we initiated and organised a soccer day for the children in the community. Community member mobilised teams of soccer players and the day was an over all success.
The entire experience I agree was a very worthwhile one, as I felt that journalists need to be in contact with the community as they are often overlooked. I did feel that the course was very time consuming and it was often difficult to manage all the work and demands put on us. I did learn how to handle sources and engage with people in positions of authority. I hope that the work that we did will have a significant impact and result in some form of change or sustainable development.
A quiet finish...
Catherine Deiner
The JDD CMP course came, with much scepticism, and left... quietly. The final distribution which should have been the highlight feels somewhat quiet. Perhaps it is the method that we have chosen to distribute our pieces? I know that limited time is perhaps to be blamed but it seems sad that after much hardwork to get our soundslides together, simply handing out a dvd is a letdown. Maybe we should have gone with sheets in the streets???? any takers??
Perhaps it is only because the soccer tournament was such a hype and the overall highlight of the JDD CMP course for me. I think that the soccer day, for me, summed up community/public journalism: helping communities find their own solutions to their problems. The biggest adjustment I had to make in doing this course was to realise that everyone does not feel the same way that I do about community engagement. This was frustrating to begin with but looking back, I think that this course has made more people civic-minded and that we will all leave Rhodes as journalists with a hint of compassion for communities and a respect for public journalism.
I will be taking a dvd to Sr Theresa today and The Assumption Nutrition Centre on Monday and, hopefully I will get to watch the dvd with the soccer players from Ward 7 and hear what they have to say about the soundslide. I would like to get their feedback before I pat myself on the back for a job well done.
The JDD CMP course came, with much scepticism, and left... quietly. The final distribution which should have been the highlight feels somewhat quiet. Perhaps it is the method that we have chosen to distribute our pieces? I know that limited time is perhaps to be blamed but it seems sad that after much hardwork to get our soundslides together, simply handing out a dvd is a letdown. Maybe we should have gone with sheets in the streets???? any takers??
Perhaps it is only because the soccer tournament was such a hype and the overall highlight of the JDD CMP course for me. I think that the soccer day, for me, summed up community/public journalism: helping communities find their own solutions to their problems. The biggest adjustment I had to make in doing this course was to realise that everyone does not feel the same way that I do about community engagement. This was frustrating to begin with but looking back, I think that this course has made more people civic-minded and that we will all leave Rhodes as journalists with a hint of compassion for communities and a respect for public journalism.
I will be taking a dvd to Sr Theresa today and The Assumption Nutrition Centre on Monday and, hopefully I will get to watch the dvd with the soccer players from Ward 7 and hear what they have to say about the soundslide. I would like to get their feedback before I pat myself on the back for a job well done.
All good things come to an end
Nasreen Bahadur
The JDD and CMP course was a whole new experience for me, and although it had it had its fair share of ups and downs, I would say this was probably the best course I’ve done this year. I enjoyed that we were able to put the theory we had learnt into practice and also exercise everything we’ve done this year in our different specialisations. This course helped us engage with the community and explored journalism in a way we have not done before. After getting a feel of the wards we were allocated in, it was up to us as a group to decide on what to do about it, this gave us a sense of agency, that we could make a contribution and make a difference to that community. As a group we worked well together to hold an eventful soccer tournament for the youth in order to tackle the issue of lack of recreational activities in the wards. This was a huge success and we hope that they continue to engage in sporting activities in their free time.
Working in a group required long hours of decisions and frustration, although we did share a couple of laughs here and there. It was a fun experience and interesting to see the different people’s ideas. I did find that working in a group took up a lot more time and one of the challenging things in the beginning was finding a suitable time for everyone to meet and work together. However we gained an understanding with each other and it all fell into place and we managed to create some amazing pieces of work.
I think the most challenging part of the course was trying to be objective. As a journalist we are taught to be objective and not to take sides, but after listening to the people and all their issues and concerns, it was very hard to gain a positive view of the municipality and the ward councillors. In a way it altered our values and there was a sense of social responsibility. This course was an eye opener as to what real journalism is about, for example running around to schedule interviews and meetings, take photographs, listen to the people and give them the opportunity to voice their concerns. Overall, I think it’s important for a journalist to engage in the wider community and deal with issues that is not usually dealt with, and through the JDD CMP course we were able to do that and much more.
The JDD and CMP course was a whole new experience for me, and although it had it had its fair share of ups and downs, I would say this was probably the best course I’ve done this year. I enjoyed that we were able to put the theory we had learnt into practice and also exercise everything we’ve done this year in our different specialisations. This course helped us engage with the community and explored journalism in a way we have not done before. After getting a feel of the wards we were allocated in, it was up to us as a group to decide on what to do about it, this gave us a sense of agency, that we could make a contribution and make a difference to that community. As a group we worked well together to hold an eventful soccer tournament for the youth in order to tackle the issue of lack of recreational activities in the wards. This was a huge success and we hope that they continue to engage in sporting activities in their free time.
Working in a group required long hours of decisions and frustration, although we did share a couple of laughs here and there. It was a fun experience and interesting to see the different people’s ideas. I did find that working in a group took up a lot more time and one of the challenging things in the beginning was finding a suitable time for everyone to meet and work together. However we gained an understanding with each other and it all fell into place and we managed to create some amazing pieces of work.
I think the most challenging part of the course was trying to be objective. As a journalist we are taught to be objective and not to take sides, but after listening to the people and all their issues and concerns, it was very hard to gain a positive view of the municipality and the ward councillors. In a way it altered our values and there was a sense of social responsibility. This course was an eye opener as to what real journalism is about, for example running around to schedule interviews and meetings, take photographs, listen to the people and give them the opportunity to voice their concerns. Overall, I think it’s important for a journalist to engage in the wider community and deal with issues that is not usually dealt with, and through the JDD CMP course we were able to do that and much more.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Final reflections...
By Divania Timmal
The JDD-CMP course has been very educational for me, as I was exposed to a form of journalism that I had not encountered previously. We interacted with people from the township and learnt a lot about them and the problems they face on a daily basis. Although most of their grievances were too serious for us to deal with (eg. RDP housing and the lack of water), we did attempt to expose the shocking situations that they lived in.
Our aim was to get the community to create sustainable solutions to some of their problems. For example, since children often had nothing to do and therefore resorted to alcohol or crime, our group decided to host a soccer tournament. Although we organised the day and time, it was up to community members to come together and form teams. It was a huge success, proving that the community is able to unite. Our hope is that these soccer tournaments become a regular weekend activity in the township, therefore providing the youth with a form of recreation.
The writers' articles will be published in Grocott's Mail. This will reach a huge audience, and we hope that the problems we brought up in the stories receive the attention they deserve.
I think that it important for journalists to engage with the community and allow them to set the news agenda. In this way, the stories that are actually important to them are given a forum. It was challenging to earn the trust of the community as they are very wary of student journalists. However, I think we were successful in establishing relationships with some amazing people, and I think our work will make a difference, if only a small one.
The JDD-CMP course has been very educational for me, as I was exposed to a form of journalism that I had not encountered previously. We interacted with people from the township and learnt a lot about them and the problems they face on a daily basis. Although most of their grievances were too serious for us to deal with (eg. RDP housing and the lack of water), we did attempt to expose the shocking situations that they lived in.
Our aim was to get the community to create sustainable solutions to some of their problems. For example, since children often had nothing to do and therefore resorted to alcohol or crime, our group decided to host a soccer tournament. Although we organised the day and time, it was up to community members to come together and form teams. It was a huge success, proving that the community is able to unite. Our hope is that these soccer tournaments become a regular weekend activity in the township, therefore providing the youth with a form of recreation.
The writers' articles will be published in Grocott's Mail. This will reach a huge audience, and we hope that the problems we brought up in the stories receive the attention they deserve.
I think that it important for journalists to engage with the community and allow them to set the news agenda. In this way, the stories that are actually important to them are given a forum. It was challenging to earn the trust of the community as they are very wary of student journalists. However, I think we were successful in establishing relationships with some amazing people, and I think our work will make a difference, if only a small one.
Living outside my bubble...
By Raessa Begum Rehman
This Journalism, Democracy, Development and Critical Media Production course 2010 has not only been an enjoyable experience for me, but an eye opening one as well. We as student journalists were taken out of our comfort-zone of Rhodes University and had our barriers shifted to the rest of the Grahamstown community ridden with issues and problems beyond our capacity to help such as lack of water, RDP housing and no recreational activities or facilities for the youth. These issues among many others have been explored. Being a radio student, working with a photojournalism student was probably one of my best experiences of this course. It had given me to opportunity to meet someone who specialised in a very visual form of journalism. This was daunting and at the same time extremely exciting as we collaborated our thoughts, ideas and training in the past year and produced media that we are really and truly proud of. We put together an audio slide show showcasing the lack of internet facilities in our wards (7 & 8). My partner and I made a personal decision to create two audio slide shows: One highlighted the lack of internet facilities in the township and the other showcased an ex-prisoner, Vuyolwethu Nekile who is trying to start up an internet café in the township and is looking for sponsors. We were able to engage to a large extent with the people we interviewed coming out of the course, creating relationships with the people we met along the way.
We as a class, channelled our energy towards an alternative kind of journalism, different to what we have been trained to do in the past two and a half years. Moving away from the writing skills courses in first year journalism, the production course in second year and current affairs and reporting earlier this year, I can safely say that JDD-CMP has definitely made me not only a better community journalist, but a more thoughtful person. At times I felt helpless listening to people’s issues but now realise that I can help. By providing a platform for the community to air their views and issues, I, as a training journalist, am in fact a catalyst for change and hope to follow through with this in the near future. So many people need their voices to be heard and we have the power to expose those voices and hopefully make an impact in the community striving for betterment and change.
Personally, I would have loved for this course to run over an entire semester. Time was a huge factor. Getting people to talk about what affected them most and trying to establish stronger bonds with the community takes much more than a couple of weeks. I see myself dedicating alot more time to do my bit for communities who need that extra bit of special attention. Living outside of my bubble has made me appreciate life much more and I hope that in the future, this course would open many other students’ eyes as it did mine.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Time to Call it a day
By Yvonne Nhuta
The JDD-CMP course has been a major learning experience for me as an individual and I think I can safely say a good majority of the JMS3 class. Although it was met with a bit of scepticism at the beginning of the semester, the process of learning to practise public journalism has most likely changed the minds of a lot of students, myself included.
When I first heard about what we would be doing as part of the course, I felt that our venture into the field of public/development journalism came at the price of extorting the greater Grahamstown community. I felt that although the intention may have been honourable, our audiences and sources would feel that we were merely using them to get a grade and ultimately a degree. I thought in essence we would not really be making that much of a positive impact on these communities but in fact would be giving them a visibly negative and fraudulent perception of Rhodes journalism students. The main reason for this train of thought was the fact that essentially the work we were going to be doing was going to be done because we were told to do so. As student s we did not sit down and come up with a public journalism project by ourselves and consequently we would be, in a manner of speaking, using these communities for our own benefit – to pass this course.
Although this perception of the course made it difficult to see how much we could actually do for these communities, I found that as the course went along, the work we produced was no longer merely for marks but intended in our small way as a method of exacting change in the Grahamstown communities. It became less about only getting it done, but also about getting it done right. After speaking to community members during the civic mapping process, it was evident that some of them felt that previous JMS classes had let them down by finishing their course and never going back to follow up and not leaving any lasting impact. As a result of this the drive to do something for the community through our journalism became stronger. One of the main concerns in our areas was the lack of resources for the youth, and stemming from this focus we helped in organising a soccer tournament for the children of wards 7 and 8. After this tournament I felt that in our small way we had given the community a platform from which they could begin to exact change in their own areas.
The actual media production process was quite demanding with regards to both time and energy. It required a lot more than most of us were used to also considering that we were working in groups and not individually. I feel I was quite fortunate as my group and sub group members worked quite well together and problems with group dynamics were somewhat averted. I did feel that we were under more pressure working as a group because all our ideas had to be meshed together to form one cohesive and clearly comprehensible idea. It was a growing experience as a designer, learning to value the creative ideas of others and also appreciating the significance of all the other specialisations particularly writing and editing and photojournalism in the WE(P)D case. We may not have been able to get people new houses or gotten the municipality to provide more water for the community but we did get the community members voices heard and their problems highlighted. Which I suppose is a fundamental learning point in this course; that as journalists we can only do so much but what we produce has limitless possibilities.
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