Download PDFEvery year, Khanya College looks to expand its network of writers to better cover working class communities especially. This year, Khanya College organised workshops in Johannesburg and Cape Town, these workshops were also aimed at building a movement for alternative media journalism. Khanya organisers ran Forum for Activism Journalists (FAJ) workshops in Thokoza, Ekurhuleni, and then in Eldorado Park in Soweto.
The Cape Town sessions took place at the Community House in Salt River. These workshops brought together activists from various organisations, including the Africa Water Crisis Committee, Children’s Resource Centre, and the Housing Assembly, to build a movement for a working class newspaper.
The main focus of the workshops was to equip activists with essential skills to tell their own stories and document the struggles in their communities, using their own voices. By doing so, Khanya College wants to empower activists and community members to drive social change through journalistic writing.
The workshops covered:
- Basic journalism skills: understanding the fundamentals of news writing and storytelling.
- Research skills: research techniques for gathering information and verifying facts.
- Interviewing skills: conducting interviews and respectful interviews with sources.
- Writing skills: Writing clear simple articles using quotations from sources for proper citation
What set these workshops apart was the emphasis on real-life experiences and challenges that working class communities face daily. During the sessions, participants went to their communities to find stories, and to do interviews with members of the community. After all that, they wrote their first articles.
“It was a bit challenging finding people who would spare a moment for an interview in my community but when we did [find someone], the procedures we learnt in the session made for a smooth interaction with the interviewees,” said Siyabonga Mangali, a participant from Thokoza.
The FAJ as a platform for activists and community members also provides an opportunity to earn an income at the same time raising serious issues in their communities writing for Karibu! This ensures that activists are not only empowered to tell their stories but also valued for their work. This initiative is not just about ensuring that activists tell their own stories; it’s also about creating a platform that where Khanya is able to contribute to the well-being and the livelihoods of activists.
“I can’t express just how crucial these kinds of workshops are for empowering the people to tell their own stories in their own voices. We need more of these workshops in our communities,” added Mangali.
The FAJ workshops saw an overwhelming participation of women, with female attendance topping 78% during the sessions in Gauteng. It was a similar divide in Cape Town where women made up 86% of the participants and 34% being the males. This impressive turnout emphasises the critical role women play in movement and community building.
By including women’s voices, movements and communities can better service marginalised people and improve inclusive decision-making processes.
“After the workshop I was encouraged to take an active role in our organisation, such as writing reports,” said Thembisa Valashiya from Cape Town.
Valashiya says her organisation relied on one person for reporting. She says the workshop has assisted in building their confidence, especially women, to step forward and assist the organisation to move forward.
FAJ workshops display Khanya’s commitment to empowering activists and communities with skills for movement building. This is done by providing a platform for activists to develop their skills, whilst earning a living through writing and publishing articles that raise issues and awareness in their organisations and communities.
These workshops are not just about training activists to be writers, they’re about amplifying working class voices and driving social transformation.
This article is an opinion piece submitted on 11 November 2024. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of Karibu! Online or Khanya College. You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and Karibu! Online (www.Karibu.org.za), and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
