Azaad Bol – 5 Week Course in Community Media & Journalism
Eka – The Communicators’ Collective, a Bhopal based non profit trust announces a 5 week course in Community Media & Journalism. The last date for applications is June 30, 2020.
About Eka:
Eka has been working in the area of Community Development and Development Communication for the past 8 years now. Their Communication work derives its essence from the community work they do with working children, adolescent girls, youth and women in the poorest urban slum communities of old city in Bhopal. Eka has a mandate to support community media & communication processes especially those which seek to establish independent, alternative/counter narratives to shape and highlight dialogue around peoples’ issues. These include grassroots efforts like the Nanhe Lekhak periodical – expressions of most marginalized children, videos and photographs by field workers, community theatre and song groups, Samvidhan Live – a web portal and a range of social media expressions, posters, infolets, zines and intervening in mainstream media spaces as well through our articles and photographs.
Azaad Bol : A 5-Week Certificate Course in Community Media & Journalism, proposed to be initiated from July 4, 2020 is the most recent development communication effort at Eka.
The Course is one of the key components of a larger Development Communication initiative committed to amplifying voices of the voiceless. Azaad Bol is shaped by Eka’s experiences in the past one year; especially their interactions with young people who documented and shared most ground incidents of the period in various formats, with diverse perspectives making the maximum use of their social media handles. This intensive media engagement helped shape & share thousands of ground narratives that mainstream media spaces chose to skip. The increasing violation of civil liberties, the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing distress, the ground presence of civil society groups and reporting during this period draws attention to the alter-narratives waiting to be discovered.
Azaad Bol is a firm step towards strengthening the movement for developing alternative thinking spaces, voices, narratives. Eka hopes to emerge with a group of young development communicators who will be assisted to set up their independent media platforms representing voices from the margins.
The Community Media & Journalism Course can be useful for social workers as well who are engaged in documentation tasks in grassroots organizations/groups. Any young person in the age group of 18-25 years with basic writing skills can apply.
Being a completely community-funded initiative, many organizations, groups and individuals have offered support in the following ways:
1. Shared relevant publications to the Course Library and the Resource Kit for participants and Resource People
2. Supported scholarships for deserving students who are unable to pay fees and help meet a particular course cost component will be hosting visits to their organization’s development communication work.
3. Facilitate a session in the course.
4. Offer internships during course completion and placements following successful completion of the course
Course Details in Brief:
Course offered by: Eka – The Communicators’ Collective
Course Coordinator: Sachin Shrivastava, Journalist
Resource Persons: Development Journalists from Mainstream Media, Alternative Media groups, organizations and institutions.
Methodology: Classroom sessions, online interactive sessions with experts, Field visits, Exposure visits, Practicals, Internships and placements.
Duration: 5 weeks, 6 days a week, 90 min per day
Timing: 5.30-7.00 pm / Monday to Saturday
Mid Course: Workshops and Special Classes
Fees: 2000/-
A certificate from Eka will be awarded to all participants successfully completing the course.
Contact Persons:
Seema Kurup – 9425014874
Sachin Shrivastava – 7869128784
Abdul Haque – 9039248563
