Notices

What Youth Journalism International is for

A portion of our recent IRS filing:
In the world of journalism these days, there is much talk of hyperlocal coverage, of online newspapers that can focus attention on a particular community with a range of tools, melding traditional reporting with blogs, video, message boards and more to provide a complete picture of what’s going on in a neighborhood. It’s a worthy idea, though awfully close to what daily newspapers have done in print for centuries. Perhaps the new venues will meet with success. What makes Youth Journalism International different, maybe unique, is its commitment to hyperglobal coverage, based on the idea that young people not only can, but must, reach across national borders to address each other, learn froItalicm each other and ultimately find ways with each other’s help to solve issues that threaten us all.
Youth Journalism International gave me a great opportunity to work with
people from all the countries. I think it is great that we can communicate in such a fast way and I think that debating with people who are not your friends and who may have different opinions is important. – Eugenia Durante, a 2009 Youth Journalism International student in Genoa, Italy.
 
[Four-year Youth Journalism International student] Edrees Kakar, who is now 22 and working for a bank in Kabul, Afghanistan, knows more than most of us how crucial it is that we pull together. The other day, a suicide bomber targeted the Indian embassy a few blocks away, killing at least 17 and shattering the windows in Kakar’s bank. He is, of course, only too aware that the next blast, or the one after that, or the one after that, could do more than shatter windows nearby. He lives in a dangerous place. But he also lives in the hearts and minds of scores of young people in many lands who know his face, his words, his ideas and, ultimately, him. He means something to them in a way that the 17 people who died outside the Indian embassy did not. Kakar is one of us. And in the long run, Youth Journalism International aims to make everyone understand that all of us are one of us.
We’ve always been a public, educational charity. It’s just time – past time, really – to make it formal.