Shalom Corps in partnership with NYU Bronfman had the pleasure of rewarding 39 professionals from 25 different organizations and 16 different countries their certificate of completion for their participation in the Activist Journalism Studies Course. This course is one of the first of its kind made for, tailored to and offered exclusively for volunteers and staff of NGOs whose mission promotes humanitarianism, global social action and the repairing of the world. Participants of the course were trained in the art of story-telling, video editing and filming, managing social platforms, creating content, how to maximize their online reach, how to target their audience and so much more!
Amongst the speakers of the closing ceremony we were honored to have our NYU Academic Facilitator Dr. Nir Tsuk in attendance. Dr, Tsuk gave a heartfelt account of his personal experience seeing the participant’s growth from beginning to end and how it was an honor to be part of their journey. In the words of our Activist Journalist from OneDay, Elad Blumental, “The course was great and gave us the right tools to speak the language of active journalism and lighted the spark of storytelling.” Being able to put what participants learned in the course to use via practical tools they can use in the field every day was a big goal and it definitely showed in their final projects.
Shalom Corps COO Daniela Blecher also joined the festivities and congratulated the Activist Journalist Graduates on behalf of Shalom Corps. She emphasized how proud we are to see all of what the participants of the course were able to learn and improve in some way. In her words, their “contribution to the world of service is sure to be significant.”
Among all the course Graduates, the ceremony had the privilege of inviting an outstanding student speaker from the course, Rafi Licenblat. Despite being from Australia and having to wake up at 4:00am he never failed to not only show up but also participate to the fullest. His dedication shined through consistently and he added such depth and perspective with his comments, creativity and outlook of how to take the tools we learned in every session and implement them into his organization Betar – Australia.
To quote Rafi’s speech his experience in the course described in one word was, “captivating!” He emphasized that he appreciated how the different topics of each session “really connected and tied in well together. This whole idea of being connected and bringing us all together seems to be quite an integral part of this course, and the use of breakout rooms and the interactive aspect of the course really properly encapsulated this. The art of non-fictional storytelling in order to promote a cause was a skill that truly developed during this course as it allowed [him] to more effectively use modern hybridised media in order to promote [his] movement. A particular thing that stood out from the course was the reverse iceberg model…” Rafi says that since implementing this method in his role as Head of Marketing of Betar Australia, “social media engagement has increased significantly.”
What is this iceberg model you ask? Stay tuned and find out more about it next week!
Meet Rafi Licenblat a 19 year-old Australian Native from Melbourne currently doing a double Bachelors Degree in Marketing and Communications at Monash University while currently serving as the Head of Marketing of Betar – Australia. We salute you Rafi, and are so honored that we could have you and 38 other very diverse participants to make our course so interesting and vibrant! Shalom Corps can’t wait to see all the future content that you and your fellow Activist Journalists create!
