Description
The "Community Journalists for Social Solidarity: StReEt" project is a 12-months initiative implemented by Go Free - Association for the Support of Civil Society in partnership with the Roma Students Association - Romano Suno and the media portals Romania Pozitiva and BuzzNews aiming to develop media advocacy and watch-dogging competences in the field of social justice for 20 Roma and non-Roma youngsters, age 15 to 30. The project is necessary as in Romanian mass-media a negative image of the Roma is often promoted, reinforcing negative stereotypes. Through the efforts of Roma and non-Roma youth acting together as community journalists and their 20 written/photo/audio/video journalistic materials, StReEt contributes to promoting social solidarity, to fighting hate speech and tedious messages against Roma in the media, but also to building an alternative within the media for the ways the socio-economic and cultural realities of Roma ethnics are portrayed. All interventions related to the social injustices/exclusion identified within the 5 rural communities from the Alba, Cluj, Mures, Salaj counties will be made through specific media advocacy approaches.
Summary of project results
The project “Community Journalists for Social Solidarity: StReEt” is a 12.5 months initiative implemented by Go Free- Association for the Support of Civil Society, with the purpose of teaching 20 young people between the ages of 14 and 30 to use community journalism as a tool for getting actively involved in multi-ethnic communities of Transylvania, as well as developing their competences in media advocacy and their role as a watchdog for social justice. Thus, during the implementation, StReEt project has achieved the following results: - 11 people involved in volunteer work (2 volunteers from the partner - Romano Suno - and 9 from Go Free); - 33 young people involved in volunteering programmes from both the Promoter and the partner Romano Suno; - the 20 young journalists developed their competences in media advocacy and their role as a watchdog through 3 training events called StReEtLab organised; - 5 rural communities from Cluj, Mures, Alba and Salaj were chosen and themes relevant to the field of social justice were identified by the young community journalists (themes that served as subjects for some of the journalistic materials); - public actions with citizens of the StReEt communities: 5 Cafe Journalism for Justice editions, 1 public media advocacy event during the FanFest Festival in Rosia Montana, 3 public local media advocacy campaigns in Daroaia, Camarasu, Cristoltel; 2 regional events in Alba-Iulia and Cluj Napoca and the “Community Journalist Gallery”; - a website which has assured the dissemination of the activity of the young community journalists as well as of the messages/themes that were central for the StReEt project (such as social justice, No Hate Speech, respect for diversity etc.); - volunteer management and financial (including fundraising) management practices developed; -“Social Justice for All” resource center developed. The project received several prizes at different galas, for an innovative way to bring social justice issues into the attention of the public.
Summary of bilateral results