“Get Ready 4 New Media” is a project proposed by the Bucharestian Youth Association for the young Journalism students and graduates of the Journalism Faculty. The aim of this project is to facilitate contact between young students or graduates and experts in media with the intention of creating an online community.
The objectives proposed by the Bucharestian Youth Association are to form a group of young, future journalists helped by experts and to ensure quality training of these young people to develop journalistic skills.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Bucharest
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
The Bucharestian Youth Association has chosen this young category as a target group, as a consequence of the lack of contact between the young Journalism students and graduates from the Journalism Faculty and the experts.
The role of these young people is to assure the sustainability of the project through the positive feedback that they will give after the three workshops. In the online environment, the young journalism graduates are underrepresented, for lack of experience in editing press articles, wrong approach from certain perspectives of various information and last but not least, the lack of psychological preparation and guidance in choosing coherent ideas in understandable phrasing. All theses facts show, that the employer would find an experienced journalist more eligible.
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
Project Manager: Mirea Ionut Horatiu Adrian (https://www.facebook.com/mirea.ionut)
Project Assistants: Urzica Loredana (https://www.facebook.com/loredana.urzica)
Tabaroiu Elena (https://www.facebook.com/roxana.tabaroiu)
Ilie Radu-Mihai (https://www.facebook.com/ilieradumihai)
Through the Bucharestian Youth Association they were able to develop the desire to engage in social projects for the benefit of not only students, but also young people aged up to 35 years. The Union of Students from Romania has Urzica Loredana as president, a young woman total involved in social projects, with excellent coordination skills. This project also represents a step forward in fulfilling social goals to achieve personal development.
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
Citizen journalism – community of young journalists that can stay in touch with experts from journalistic domain. During three workshops, having discussions with the experts on various topics in areas like political journalism, civic engagement, sport, education and health will be helpful, but the web platform will do more for them because will consist in posting articles and ideas for discussion between young people and experts through the sharing of approaches of different topics, not only for three days. In the online community they can ask the experts, post the ideas, debate topics etc. The experts will advise young journalists on the structure, content, or main point of the press articles.
What technologies and digital tools do you plan to use in the trainings?
Describe the connections that you or your organization have already established or plan to establish that will contribute to the success of the project.
For the project implementation, we established connections with Radio Bucharest (http://www.bucurestifm.ro/) and PoliticALL (http://politicall.ro/), to provide us the experts.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
The registration of the participants will be done after promoting online the project, furthermore posters and flyers will be distributed in the Faculty of Journalism at the University of Bucharest.
After the registration is completed, 15 participants will be selected to take part on the workshops. For the selection to be made, young graduates and students from Journalism will develop an idea with the title “Investigative Journalism in the defense of the state subject to the rule of law” written as an article.
During these three workshops, the participants will be able to discuss with the experts, will learn new ways to compose articles, to choose the best ideas and to select the relevant information.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
Media technologies, methods and tools used for the training of participants: web platform, various programs for editing and publishing news/press articles. These technologies and knowledge of implementing best practice methodologies, are required for the online community development.
The online environment is the most important source of information and also a mean of communication, reasons why the project sets the target to create an online community, easy to access.
With the help of media partners will be possible to assure the quality of the professional development of young future journalists by providing a way of communication between them and the team of experts involved in the project.
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
Facilities offered by Frends Center (Bucharest): training hall, plasma, tables, video projector, camera, flipchart and LAN network.
What is your current relationship with the community with whom you plan to work? What makes you the most appropriate individual or organization to implement this project?
The current relationship with the community of journalists is very good, fact proven by the successful collaboration of the Bucharestian Youth Association with them on various projects, such as “Get Ready 4 Entrepreneurship” and “Intercultural Evenings” for the youth.
The Bucharestian Youth Association is an organization that set its purpose to support and contribute to the development and involvement of youth and students in social, cultural, artistic, educational, sporting and environmental events, representing a support for the promotion, development and support of the initiatives of youth and students in Bucharest. The online community will be created in the process of implementation of the project and it will be developed continuously, conferring professional support for youth.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
There will be made a list of professional journalists in the fields of: politics, civic involvement, sports, education and health, from which will be selected as trainers for the three workshops. The only drawback at this stage might be the refusal of some of them (people’s reluctance, busy schedule), and in order to avoid this, the initial number of trainers will be higher, and the project assistants will help them to build a class schedule.
Another problem could be the assessment of the location for the three workshops. Initially, it will be chosen the most adequate training hall, available in the scheduled days. If the first location will be occupied, another one will be picked, according to a previously made contact list.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
The impact assessment will be done through continuous monitoring of the project by the project assistants and constant evolution will be reported to the project manager. The project assistants will take care of enrolling youth and then selecting the 15 participants.
The participant’s journalistic abilities will be improved at the workshops, at regional level will be set a precedent, and at a worldwide digital level will be a model of good practice.
The final evaluation will be done by applying questionnaires to participants, in order to obtain feedback.
The success of the “Get Ready 4 New Media” consists in the formation of 15 young future successful journalists by facilitating contact with the experts, and in the development of the online community through further active participation.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
A1. Farming out responsibilities in the project team
= 1 of May – 8 of May 2014
A2. Contacting the experts from media
= 8 of May – 22 of May 2014
A3. Renting the training hall
= 8 of May – 22 of May 2014
A4. Advertising
= 22 of May – 5 of June 2014
A5. Participant’s registration
= 22 of May – 5 of June 2014
A6. Participant’s selection
= 5 of June – 5 of July 2014
A7. Purchasing materials
= 21 of June – 5 of July 2014
A8. Workshops
= 12 of July, 19 of July, 26 of July 2014
A9. Impact evaluation
= 26 of July – 31 of August 2014
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
A3 Bills – 20 x 0,5 $ = 10 $
Lanyards – 20 x 2 $ = 40 $
Presentation maps – 20 x 0,5 $ = 10 $
T-shirts – 15 x 10 $ = 150 $
Domain.ro and hosting – 50 $ + 100 $/an = 150 $
Internet connection = 30 $
Expert’s payment – 5 x 150 $ = 750 $
Meal = 600 $
Training Hall + Video projector + Camera = 500 $
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
“Rising Voices” can provide us contacts of other applicant organizations on journalism projects, with whom we may keep an online relation, talking about the evolution of the projects.
Contact name
Mirea Ionut Horatiu Adrian
Organization
The Bucharestian Youth Association
