“During my university studies and local volunteering, I used to look for opportunities to cooperate with organisations dealing with international development agenda, human rights and media production at the same time. I was privileged to cooperate with two great nonprofits – KOWC / Kerry Action for Development Education in Tralee, Ireland (thanks to Grundtvig assistantship in 2012) and Media Literacy Project in Albuquerque, New Mexico (thanks to CSP / IREX Fellowship in 2014). Unfortunately, due to lack of funding they do not exist anymore.
Thanks to those cooperations, I was able to expand my expertise and bring the knowledge I had gained from the field of Media and literacy (MIL) into my teaching and researching portfolio at both of my current jobs. As a DocUnion founder and educator I have been providing global journalism and MIL trainings for adult learners – mostly future international volunteers and development field workers as part of their pre-departure preparation.
It is always a big challenge for them to adapt to the local context, to understand the cultural norms, to communicate with new partners from vulnerable communities and to cover this unique experience from abroad in responsible and ethical ways. This global journalism component has been integrated into my MIL workshops. The learners learn how to deconstruct and analyse particular articles (e.g. reportages from low-income countries), as well as how to create their own media products and cover global challenges from Global South without manipulating and blackmailing the audience – by using the colonial language of White saviours from the Global North and the poverty marketing tools. Thanks to practical examples from the field and a comparison of suitable and unsuitable images and narratives from the real campaigns, there is a lot of food for thought for all participating adult learners.”
You can read Boba’s full story on EPALE website here and in EPALE community storyBook here:
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Media about Development 