Migrant groups in Amman and Dubai convene to advance citizen journalism

After completing the series of trainings on digital literacy and mobile citizen journalism, migrant groups in Amman and Dubai held separate meetings to elaborate how they can put their acquired citizen journalism knowledge into practice.

The discussions focused on identifying concrete topics that migrant workers concern themselves with which needed more attention. Suggestions included creating a vlog detailing what a first time arriving migrant should know about living and working in the host-country, based on the lived realities of fellow workers. Others suggested include trying a talkshow or podcast that explains the rights and welfare assistance programs available to migrant communities. There were also discussions on how to enhance the utilization of existing Facebook pages of the migrant groups, incorporating the lessons learned during the trainings to make social media posts more visible and engaging to other migrants.

Members of the Jordan Chapter Organization (JCO) and Federation of Filipino Associations in Amman, Jordan (FEFAA) discussed how to maximize video recordings of their activities so that the footage can be shared to social media. In Jordan, several media groups have raised the possibility of hosting a segment dedicated to the situation of migrant workers, which can have resource persons from Filipino migrant groups.

Filipino migrant groups based in the United Arab Emirates talked about how to optimize their information sharing methods in their social media accounts. They plan to diversify the formats they publish, moving beyond plain-text posts to incorporate infographics, short videos, and audio recordings.