MediaCorps Fellowship Program extended for future journalists

• Collaborative Peace Journalism Program for university media students

An innovative Peace Journalism program called MediaCorps Fellowship has been launched by Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum (SDJF) in order to facilitate dialogue amongst youth from diverse backgrounds into one common platform where they can share not only the grievances of each other’s communities, but also the wealth of their culture and traditions for the awareness of a wider audience. 

The purpose of Phase 2 of this initiative is to educate and empower the university students who are studying Media and Journalism to transcend conventional barriers in reporting and to become highly capable of applying gender and conflict sensitive storytelling techniques, in producing collaborative multimedia stories. The overall goal of MediaCorps is to use media as a platform to promote national dialogue and reconciliation in Sri Lanka. 

Nearly 92 young journalists, storytellers, short film makers, and web journalists benefited from this program in the last two years. SDJF has extended the program to 25 undergraduates from Sri Jayewardenepura, Jaffna and Eastern Universities who are included in the first intake of the program which was held from 3-7 January in Negombo.

This MediaCorps Fellowship program will include a five-day residential training and a field production activity. Discussions on diversity and pluralism, peace and conflict sensitive journalism, gender sensitive journalism and social media for journalism will be offered to trainees, followed by a comprehensive practical training on Mobile Journalism (MoJo), an emerging trend in the field of journalism in the world, which can be used as an effective tool to capture stories of marginalised communities. 

The trainees will spend one day in the field visiting a nearby community to capture a MoJo story, followed by a story editing session. The Fellows will also have the opportunity to interact and network with editors of leading newspapers in Sri Lanka who will be present for a panel discussion during the training.

The training is facilitated by a panel of well-experienced resource persons including South Asia Center for Legal Studies Director Dr. Wijaya Jayatilake, ICTA Specialist, Strategic Communications T.M.G. Chandrasekara, Sri Lanka Parliament Director Communications Shan Wijetunge, TV Derana General Manager News K.C. Saranga, and Vidivelli Editor Mohamed Fairooz, Sri Lanka Unites Reconciliation Center Matara Manager Kapila Ramanayaka, and SDJF staff. A team of story mentors consisting of senior AV experts will also provide continuous support to these trainees until they become competent of producing their own MoJo stories.

In Phase 2, Fellows are expected to work in pairs and produce collaborative stories on issues affecting a community other than their own that have hindered the achievement of inclusive reconciliation. Their stories will be shared across a wider audience with the aim of fostering cross-cultural dialogue. Each Fellow will also receive a complete MoJo toolkit including a smartphone and financial assistance to support their fieldwork and story production.

The program is implemented by SDJF as a part of Media Empowerment for Democratic Sri Lanka (MEND) program supported by IREX and USAID. For more information on the program, please visit www.ldjf.org or call on 011-2806265.