Salesian Mobile Journalism

The young people from across the ZMB vice province (Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Namibia) have convened in Bauleni, at the Salesian youth Animation centre for the first ever of its kind in the Salesian world, the Salesian Mobile Journalism workshop, nicknamed “Sal-MoJo”.

Speaking in his introductory remarks Fr Maciej Makula SDB said, “I believe the future of the church is in Africa”, as he noted the increase in Catholic Christians and hence, he decided to debut this ground breaking workshop in the ZMB vice province. Having had an illustrious career in the Polish Television and travelled over thirty times to Africa Fr Maciej Makula SDB and his colleague Aleksandra Stankiewicz, a young journalist from Poland seek to show to the world a positive African perspective. This is in contrast to the European and humanitarian perspective which has unveiled to the world only the hunger, poverty and dirt in Africa, yet failing to account for the joy, the music, and the positive and openhearted nature of people in Africa.

Working together in this project on mobile journalism, Fr Maciej Makula SDB and Aleksandra Stankiewicz have managed to unpack the concept of mobile journalism and bring it to life through interesting and vibrant ways. The young people at various points of the course have indeed affirmed how ‘educative, eye opening and exciting’, this whole experience has been.

Throughout the experience young people have also begun to tap into their creativity by bringing to life seemingly uninteresting through the power of video shooting. As seen in one of the exercises young people captured ants, flowers and buildings and gave them meaning through the use of the numerous techniques taught in the workshop.

The host Fr Andrzej Reut, SDB, has also been actively engaged in the exercises proving beyond reasonable doubt that ‘there is no limit to learning’. Fr Andrew who is currently the province’s Social communications delegate has seen this as an opportunity to improve the visibility of the works of the Salesians in the various communities around the province.

This workshop running for 4 days has capacitated young people with the skills for real time media updates for events happening across the province in line with what the ANS Salesian News Agency is doing at an international level. “Making use of content creation young people will be able to tell stories through their videos in real time, that is the way to go,” Fr Maciej Makula SDB said as he used an example of a media content made at the raising of the Rector Major to a cardinal.

A key aspect of the MoJo workshop was to bring the young people gathered up to date with the current trends in journalism thereby making them competent participants in the social communications scene.

This is a great start to the year 2024 in which the Strenna is “The dream that makes you dream,” because this workshop will give the young people an opportunity to envision more ways to improve their social communications presence in their countries. It is but the start of a great journey and adventure into the field of mobile journalism.

Despite the many challenges faced in that there is a lack of professional equipment for this kind of journalism, there is a lot of hope and joy in having to carry out this kind of journalism in the different localities across the salesian Province. As we await the “golden hour”, our time to be fully equipped the young people have shown the drive to do the best they can with the equipment they have.