Today was the first meeting for our new health journalism group we are starting in the community to provide practical writing and speaking skills to teenage students in Mozambique.
After explaining to the students that they would not be learning English in the group (“the people who we will be helping and listening to in the community don’t speak English, so why should we?”), we started with a (seemingly) simple question: What is journalism?
The students broke into pairs and had five minutes to think of an answer in one word (which helps keep it simple, but also helps my limited Portuguese). The following answers were given from the group of 18 students, ages 12-19:
The translation of the answers is: organization, messages, information, words, collect, organization (x2), means. I wanted to see where the knowledge of the students landed, and me and my counterpart helping with the group were happy with the results! The collection of information and the use of messaging seemed well known to them. We are on the right track.
We finished the hour-long group with a game of the human knot (header photo); however, explaining the game in Portuguese proved more difficult that first expected. The students locked hands but started to spin in a circle as a group. After a few attempts, we broke up, collected contact information, planned the next meeting, and dismissed.
We hope to connect the group with this blog to provide an avenue for the students to share their thoughts, their findings, their lives with people around the world. This is an ongoing series and will result in a better understanding of Mozambican youth through health, journalism, and cooperative learning.
im-ma-ture 