By Youlendree Appasamy
The Future Journalism Programme has been a crazy roller-coaster ride of meeting new, like-minded individuals, learning new things about the trade of journalism and good ‘ol work.
The Programme consists of an Autumn, Winter and Spring School. The autumn School clued all 16 of us up on the basics of writing, photography and digital journalism, so that we could be prepared for the Winter School, which took place during the National Arts Festival here in Grahamstown. Fest opened up our minds to the craft of arts journalism – something none of us had experience in. We attended some great and not-so-great Fringe shows and insightful Think!fest talks. The Spring School, and our last time together, was held during the annual Highway Africa Conference in Grahamstown. All of us FJP’s were gobsmacked by the quality and talent of the people we met and networked with, and the high calibre of the workshops we attended.
This whirlwind experience has broadened all of our perspectives. We all came from different backgrounds and parts of South Africa, with different skills and ideas about journalism and what it means to be a journalist. We learned and laughed, both in and out of the African Media Matrix (our headquarters for all the Schools). In the process of learning new things about journalism, we learned new things about each other, which gave the entire programme more significance to our lives. Personally, my fondest memory of the Programme was when we all did a Harlem shake rendition within two days of meeting each other!
Thanks are definitely necessary – firstly to the Highway Africa team and the Open Source Foundation for sponsoring us, and showing an interest in helping young journalists in South Africa. Secondly to Nqobile Buthelezi, Karabo Tledima and Sim Kyazze for their journalistic guidance and administrative support.
What did the other students say about the 2013 Future Journalist Programme? Have a look.
Youlendree Appasamy is a student journalist at Rhodes University fascinated by the intersection of literature and politics.