Al-Qalam 
By Al-Qalam Reporter
A two-day Citizen Journalism Boot camp held in Durban last weekend ended with participants totally inspired and motivated to effect change in their communities
The Citizen Journalism Boot camp for Muslims held at the Exotic Conference Centre was a resounding success. Organisers said the next project would be creating an online platform that will allow Muslim citizen journalists the opportunity to publish their work.
The boot camp was organised by community activists, Rashid Chopdat and Annisa Essack who teamed up to host the programme with the aim of attracting emerging Muslim journalists.
Chopdat has been involved in business and community work for over 40 years and had founded the DAWN Education and Leadership Centre more than 17-years-ago.
Media has been one of his passions and he saw the need to host a programme of this nature due to an evident lack of skills in the community. Essack has been involved in radio broadcasting for over 25 years, having worked with several Muslim stations.
The boot camp was attended by more than 50 participants ranging from housewives to school students who all gained valuable insights and learnt skills from prominent South African Muslim journalists that spoke at the event.
Some of the speakers included award-winning journalist Faizel Patel, co-ordinator at Defend our Democracy, Zaakirah Vadi, Voice of the Cape’s News Editor, Feroz Shaik, and Mohammed Kharwa of the South African Muslim Network.
One participant Mohammed Rahman of Overport told Al-Qalam he had acquired a wealth of knowledge from attending the event.
“It was very helpful. I attended with the intention of learning new skills, improving my writing when it comes to my organisation, Rauf, and writing small articles. But it’s actually motivated me and made me realise how much I can do to strive for change. I enjoyed every bit of it because it was very informative. There were reputable speakers and they gave us first-hand information on how we can be more impactful in what we are doing. We need to speak out – and one of the key factors is truth. We need to keep pushing for the truth,” said Rahman.
Another attendee, Maleeha Dawood, said she fund the boot camp ‘very inspirational’.
“I did a Muslim Youth Movement course and it was a build-on from what I learnt there. It gave us a wider perspective on what journalists see when they go out into the world. One of the main things that stood out for me was that women in hijab can do this work. There are so many issues in the world, and with Islamophobia (on the rise) it’s very difficult for women who wear hijab to be in these careers. They find it challenging but women in hijab can be journalists and citizen journalists too,” said Dawood.
Bilkees Nobuhle Mdluli, a student from the Muslim Youth Movement’s residence said the main thing that stood out for her, was that it was possible to be an activist journalist.
“As a Muslim, it is helpful for other Muslims to be informed and for them to be given the opportunity to learn more about journalism. I found out that there are many challenges we face in our community but people often don’t know how to go about tackling these challenges and getting the message out there. At this workshop, I have learnt that you can talk about these things, you can report things by yourself,” said Mdluli.
Organiser Rashid Chopdat said overall the feedback was positive.
“We got positive feedback from everybody, including the organisations which supported it. We had Ulama there, we had teachers, housewives and dawah workers. Participants now feel that there is a need for more practical training after learning about the theory,” said Chopdat.
He says the high school students who attended from Al Falaah College were also motivated to set up a radio station at their school.
“We will help support them with this initiative. What we are considering very seriously now is to set up a news website so the participants can start writing articles and this will help build up their confidence levels. Most of their articles won’t get accepted immediately by media houses, ” said Chopdat.
