The Maldives Project
The Maldives Project consists of a series of citizen journalism workshops on three islands in the Maldives on June 15 – August 10, 2010.
Project Goals:
Our goal is to teach the basics of journalism to eager Maldivian citizen journalists. They will learn to produce quality multimedia journalistic pieces, as well as have the skills to create and maintain news blogs directed to an international audience. Our hope is that, with motivated and capacitated new reporters, there will be an increase in the international community’s awareness of the major problems facing the Maldives due to climate change.
The Workshops:
With Internet penetration growing steadily in the Maldives (currently about 20 percent according to the CIA World Book of Facts), the web is quickly becoming the Maldivians’ medium of choice for exercising their freedom of speech.
The Maldives Project will build upon this foundation by teaching the students multimedia skills so that they can tell their stories not only through writing but through video production, audio slideshows and blogging.
The workshops will be offered to youth and young adults between the ages of 17 and 35 with the goal to help these young Maldivians become eager citizen reporters, inspiring some to pursue professional journalism careers.
The workshops will last 5-10 days each and the islands currently under consideration are Seenu Hithadhoo (pop. 15 000 residents), Kulhudhuffushi (pop. 8,200) and the capital island of Male‘ (pop. 100,000). Each workshop will be designed for 5-10 students.
At the end of each workshop, students will be more familiar with the language of new media. They will have the skills to set up their own community news blogs and can report on the news of their faraway islands to the capital islands’ media outlets. Those most motivated to start journalism careers will get specific lessons on freelancing and will learn how to get stories published in foreign media outlets.
About the instructors:
Mirva and Mariana are freelance journalists and graduates of the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. The school is known as the flagship school for new media education in the US.
Mirva is an experienced freelance journalist for both Finnish and American outlets. Mariana is a Brazilian multimedia journalist.
Through this project, they wish to share our skills and knowledge in a way that’s effective in promoting the issues that are important to Maldivians within the global community.
Funding:
The funding for this project is provided by the Davis Project for Peace Grant.
