A nation’s diversity brings to light a sense of creativity, change, uniqueness, sense of community, harmony and love among other things. When taking into context, our nation Sri Lanka, even though seen as a small country on the world map, the island nation boasts of a rich cultural and historical heritage that is yet to be discovered by her countrymen. There is so much to be seen and yet, it has been determined that there are countless stories from across the country that are yet to be heard and witnessed by the general public.
With the aim of shedding light on real perspectives of those whose lives we may not always encounter on a daily basis, the Centre for Media and Information Literacy (CMIL) initiated a mobile journalism project titles ‘Capture Diversity and Promote Unity’. The aim of this project was to focus on the subject of reconciliation and the importance of fostering a solid narrative through strengthening relationships, promoting trust, empathy and critical thinking amongst the general public.
CMIL designed this project with the aim of utilizing its wide-ranging expertise in mobile storytelling, to capture the diversity of different religious and ethnic communities – Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Islam, and promote them through social media whilst creating active conversation on the strength of diversity whereby fostering mutual understanding and respect for differences amongst communities.
To tell these stories through a smartphone camera lens, eight female mobile journalists hailing from strategic districts from across the island and who came from various racial and religious backgrounds; Tamil, Sinhala, Muslim, Hindu, Christianity and Buddhism, took part. Before they were assigned to a particular location to begin their search for stories that highlighted diversity, the project’s first phase commenced with the instigation of focus group discussions with the participation of youth and individuals who were keen on the subject of fostering diversity.
A public call was put out for interested applicants to apply. The process proved a success and many entries were recorded, whereby paving the way for two separate FGD sessions to be initiated via zoom meetings. The selection of participants for the FGD sessions ensured the inclusion of equal ratios of participants with a priority on their gender, age groups, educational backgrounds, geographic regions, race and religion in order to diversify the participants for the virtual meetings.
The purpose of the FGDs were to discuss about the participants’ personal view and perspective on the subject of diversity, what it means for them as citizens, what issues they felt were common among themselves or their communities and eventually, to shortlist specific geographic regions that would later, be explored by CMIL assigned mobile storytellers.
The context of the stories did not only focus on the elements of race and religion but also shed light on people’s livelihoods, communities, women-run households, art and culture, marginalized communities, LGBTQI communities and people living in poverty. To get the storytellers going with the next phase of the project following insight gained for the FGD sessions, a training workshop was arranged by CMIL staff wherein they received further training in mobile journalism with a highlight on the element of diversity.
The storytellers covered stories from districts such as Badulla, Monaragala, Batticaloa, Jaffna, Colombo and Trincomalee and produced 12 video stories that emphasized on areas of diversity, cultural influences, religious practices and community spirit. The videos are currently being widely shared via popular social media platforms and can be viewed via the ‘Centre for Media and Information Literacy’ YouTube channel by clicking on this link – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkm5WWXvdZlqWi6Na8veesw/videos. This program was supported through the Small & Mighty Grants Program implemented by Sarvodhaya and funded by the U.S. Embassy in Colombo.
The Centre for Media and Information Literacy is a non-profit organization committed to promote Critical Information Consumption (CIC) and Digital Media and Information Literacy (DMIL) amongst people of all ages, with a view to enabling them as active and vibrant citizens in the democratization of information in Sri Lanka.