By Phuntsho Namgay | Assistant Programme Officer
Dear friends, donors and supporters,
After a three month long renovation the Media Lab is all set to take on activities, programmes and waiting for our youth come back to their lab. While renovations were on-going - a project undertaken by the landlord - we had to conduct our lab activities in borrowed and outside space but they did not reduce the enthusiasm despite the limitations.
We are re-launching our lab soon and will take in new members this time. With the renovations at the lab near completion, we are looking ahead for our much awaited summer nomads programme which will be held at the lab in July.
The lab, however, continues to house the Youth Initiative for Debate, Deliberation and Development (YI). The youth representatives attended a two day advocacy training at the lab. During the two-day training, BCMD programme officers led Youth Representatives from the YI in an intensive workshop on how they could better approach their advocacy campaigns using insights from social psychology.
Since receiving their training in January, the Youth Representatives have been carrying out advocacy campaigns on issues relating to social justice, education, and community welfare
The training focused on teaching how to use films and short documentaries to advocate. As a part of their advocacy campaign, the Youth Representatives worked on three individual videos on promoting local products, awareness on employment and infrastructure facilities for differently abled persons, and on ways to improve the education system. The 3 minute long videos will soon be uploaded on our YouTube channel.
In March, the youth representatives gathered at Bhutan Youth Development Fund (YDF) computer hall to attend two day training on how to create a well-crafted, objective and engaging podcasts as a medium for sharing their ideas.
After learning a wide range of skills including question writing, interview techniques, research tips, editing and audio recording, the YI members were provided with recording equipment and given a week to carry out independent field work; conducting interviews with a variety of contributors related to their topics.
YI members are currently working in groups to construct short documentary style podcasts.The podcasts will be available on the BCMD Sound Cloud.
As we prepare to kick start our lab with a re-launch in coming weeks, we are also excited to begin designing BCMD's Community Mapping workshop with collaboration with UNICEF, and other trainings including tailings for the Youth Representatives of the initiative. It’s amazing how small intentional learning space can give rise to such large youth aspirations and has helped amplify youth voice in a landlocked, mountainous country with difficult communications and a newly evolving democracy. Thank you to all our supporters for making this possible.
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