About the program

This program as imagined by the grant-writing entity, and our partner, HAND (Helping Africans in a New Direction) was intended to give Somali youth a way to supplement their family income by working as journalists for the summer. When the Columbus Council on World Affairs and Lorz Communications were invited to serve as the two entities charged with student instruction, the program evolved to become something much more. CCWA saw it as a way to introduce Somali high school students to the power of journalism as a vital force in a democracy.

Besides offering fundamentals -- like interview skills, identifying story ideas, and writing a lead -- activities were designed so that news reporting would be the vessel through which which participant youth would have a REASON to interact with with mentors and "sources" from many diverse cultures. And, by extension, it also served as a way to normalize their presence in the larger Central Ohio community. The program gave students a reason to approach new people in public settings. This helped them gain confidence interacting outside the boundaries of the Somali Disapora.

As an additional benefit to using a newspaper format as a learning canvas, the stories which were printed helped non-Somalis learn about some of the issues of importance to our writers, their families and friends. The students ultimately produced an edition of thier own newspaper . Aayo Ifis ("bright future" in Somali) was an insert to the publication SomaliLink (HAND's newsletter). You can see Aayo Ifis on our website!

In subsequent years, CCWA hopes to continue offering its instructional expertise and services, but also plans to get on board much earlier in the program planning stages. This will ensure that the program is designed with the long-term benefits to youth in mind.

One student's reflection

Safia Sheikh is a graduate of the 2008 summer journalism program who plans to attend OSU in Fall 2009. Our staff asked her to make remarks at the program's graduation ceremony, on July 31, 2008. Here is what she said:

"Did you know that in the United States Constitution, the First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press? This means that people can receive the news and others can report it without fearing the government. That is not necessarily true for the many countries that don’t have this freedom. My journalism class learned about press freedoms from one of our speakers, Frank Smyth, who is from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Smyth, who came all the way from Washington D.C., talked to us about Nasteh Dahir Farah who was a contributor to BBC and The New York Times who was killed this past June in Kismayo, most likely because he wrote stories that certain people did not want printed. Somalia is rated the second most dangerous place for journalists, after Iraq.

These past five weeks, I have gained lot knowledge about the do’s and don’ts of Journalism. From how the paper is produced to the ethical issues involved with Journalism. I remember that on the first day of Journalism class we did an exercise to learn about some of our own biases and perspectives. It’s important to know your own biases so that you can try to put them aside when trying to deliver information.

We also learned about what news is and how news is different based on where you get that news. To illustrate this point, one of our speakers, Jeff Sheban, from the Columbus Dispatch, made us listen to a 15 minutes news segment from both NPR and BBC and we understood that BBC has more details of the news than NPR.

One of the most interesting and one of the only few times that the class has given their undivided attention was the field trip to the Dayton Daily News print center. That day we learned that newspapers take many machines and effort to make to your front door before the news gets old.

Our class investigated the cars of both of our teachers, Mike Lorz and Stephanie Calondis, to learn to be observant and to practice asking open ended questions. Another day we went on a photo scavenger hunt to take pictures of the city of Columbus. Some class mates went to Easton, downtown, OSU, global mall and Banaadir mall. I remember that one of the problems our group faced was that people there did not want their pictures taken. Later that week our class contacted the head of the ethics committee from the society of professional journalism to ask about how to handle different ethical situations. From him we learned that there is no black and white when looking at ethical issue but that it is a process that you have to go through.

Over the past week our class experienced the process of putting paper together and what a typical newsroom is like. We had to interview people from different backgrounds to get answers to our questions. Sometimes we had challenges, including people who wouldn’t answer or pick up the phone. Eventually we interviewed enough people to write an article on. Even then we had to go through the process of putting all our ideas together and work as a group. Our teachers edited and finalized the paper to make sure that the articles were complete. Although this process was challenging and even frustrating at times, in the end we can be sure that it was all worth it.

News is something that will always be needed. As Frank Smyth from the CPJ told us as long as people continue to seek for that news and seek for the truth, then we can be sure that Journalism will always be around. Even if I do not choose to become a professional Journalist, I am glad to know that there are people working in that job to bring us the truth and now we all have a better understanding of what that means."

Editorial cartoons

In our unit on political/editorial cartoons, students learned the methods employed by cartoonists to get their message across to readers: the use of symbols, labels, exaggerated features, etc. Students had many ideas for the type of content they would like to draw and what symbols they would use to convey their commentary. The cartoon that we ultimately chose to appear in the students' newspaper is illustrated here. It was drawn by Zam Zam Mire with input from her group members.

Can you see what symbols the students used and what their message was? Please comment!

Other groups also had wonderful ideas. At first, they were daunted by the art aspect of things. They were frustrated at not being about to draw their cartoons the way they imagined them. But, I explained that their assignment was to LIST the symbols or labels they would use, to describe the scenario they were illustrating and to TRY to sketch a rough rendering of it. They were scored on the concept and not the final product.