The JOURNEY road led this week to Hda. Binitin in Barangay Blumentritt Murcia.
JOURNEY, or Journalism Education for Young Negrenses, is a mobile media training program I started six years ago. It is focused on providing learning opportunities for students to strengthen their interest in communication, particularly in honing their skills for journalism and multi-media platforms.
Our venue was the spacious and green, countryside campus of the Catholic Ming Yuan College, which invited me to conduct a training for its student writers and network of schools linked to Quipper.
Quipper, which was a co-sponsor of the event with host CMYC, is a London-based education technology firm that provides e-Learning related services for K-12 schools in the Philippines and a number of other Asian countries.
I was happy I had another opportunity to show the seeds of journalism when CMYC Vice President for Academic Affairs Maryam Castel, a sister of my friend and former student, California resident Maricon Ramos, invited me to conduct a one-day basic print and online journalism training.
Adding to my excitement was the inclusion of students and advisers from my CHICKS area neighbors – Cabarrus Catholic College and Kabankalan Catholic College – because of the prospects of spreading and strengthening my personal mission of development-oriented journalism to areas with very limited access to print media.
With my team – which included colleagues Nanette Guadalquiver who heads the local bureau of the Philippine News agency, PIA Deputy Director Easter Anne Doza, USLS Communication Marketing Director Mark Dueñas and new lawyer Joevel Bartolome – we tried to share as much knowledge and insights to our trainees given the limited schedule we had.
We are hopeful that whatever seeds we have sown in our “Campus and Community Journalism: An Overview” module at CMYC, an agri-focused institution, will grow in the hearts and minds of our audience, their messages on print and social media spreading to the far ends of the eastern and southern parts of the province to help improve the people’s quality of life in the countrysides.
Our team takes this opportunity to reiterate our thanks to CMYC president Fr. Yongxing Cui, who joined us practically the whole day, Ma’am Maryam, Quipper Regional Manager Mark Jenel Magdato, who is a former college editor himself, the teachers and advisers of the host school, KCC and CCC and the staff of Ming Yuan as well as the participants for a very fulfilling and rewarding ‘journey’.
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The week from February 1 to 7 is being observed as World Interfaith Harmony Week, an initiative of the United Nations.
World Interfaith Harmony Week has been celebrated since 2010. The UN General Assembly has underscored “that mutual understanding and interreligious dialogue constitute important dimensions of a culture of peace and established World Interfaith Harmony Week as a way to promote harmony between all people regardless of their faith.”
UNGA said it encourages all States “to spread the message of interfaith harmony and goodwill in the world’s churches, mosques, synagogues, temples and other places of worship during that week, on a voluntary basis and according to their own religious traditions or convictions.”
Conceived to promote a culture peace and nonviolence, the event was first proposed by King Abdullah II of Jordan at the United Nations in 2010 and was immediately adopted by the UNGA, “which calls on governments, institutions and civil society to observe it with various programs…”
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And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” (Mark 16:15) | NWI
