Media Bootcamp hopes to equip people with skills to share their stories

Aug 15, 2014

Media Bootcamp hopes to equip people with skills to share their stories

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Originally published at rabble.ca.

The pre-People's Social Forum Media Bootcamp is starting this Saturday July 26 and will be teaching people documentation skills to allow them to tell their own stories. It will provide free workshops and training in radio, live-streaming, interviewing, editing, social media and photography.

The Media Bootcamp leads up to the Peoples' Social Forum, which will be held in Ottawa in late August. The forum aims to create a critical public space to bring people together who want to transform Canada.

The Media Bootcamp seeks to engage and harness the energy that will be generated by the Peoples' Social Forum to create lasting alternative media institutions and equip people with the skills needed to document their experiences. Therefore, prioritizing training and education about media production before the forum is a must.

"Basically we're having indie media folks come over and talk about all the different documentation skills that are needed before the Peoples' Social Forum in August," said Sakura Saunders, organizer of the Media Bootcamp.

However the camp is open to even those who won't be at the forum.

Saunders hopes that the camp will lead to long-term independent media infrastructure in Ottawa. "Ottawa is a centre of consciousness because it is the centre of decision-making. For me, I really want to train these folks, and do it in a really fun atmosphere so that they can build a sense of camaraderie with each other."

Saunders added that it's important for these institutions to be created and for people to be armed with these skills in order to ensure that movements are covered in depth.

"These skills are not hard to learn so we should be telling our own stories, from different perspectives," said Saunders.

Miriam Katawazi is a fourth-year journalism and human rights student at Carleton University and rabble's news intern. She has a strong passion for human rights and social justice in Canada and across the world. Her writing focuses on health, labour, education and human rights beats.