Project Launch:

eNews Association is a youth development NGO. In previous years it operated as a local club under the title Ouarzazate eNews. eNews Association is dedicated to empowering youth with skills to bring about social change, aiming to create leaders who will give back to their community. 

This 9-month project targets 50 young motivated Moroccan participants from Zagora, Ouarzazate, Errachidia, Essaouira, and Agadir. It will reinforce their skills through a 5-day workshop in e-journalism, including but not limited to, news styles, reporting, interviewing, editing, and photography. After the training, participants will work on their personal projects on a topic of concern to their city and communities. The best 15 projects will be selected for a prize.

Project Update:

The eNews Citizen Lab application was sent out in late September 2016 to recruit participants for the project. Just 25 days later, 380 applications were received! 150 participants were selected to be interviewed in November and 50 project participants were chosen (30 women and 20 men). Journalism professionals then trained the participants and the training was a huge success. 

In the next quarter, the participants will work on their personal projects, reporting on issues in their community and practicing their journalistic, writing, videography, and photojournalism skills. The project team will visit the participants in their cities, give them feedback on their work, and prepare them for the competition. The project team will also start to prepare for the eNews Citizen Journalism Competition as well as for the 2 days Award ceremony in Ouarzazate.

Final Report: 11-27-17

The eNews Citizen Lab social media has over 5000 followers. 18000 unique visits were made to the eNews Citizen Lab between January 1 and May 31, 2017. The reaction to the publication on the eNews Citizen Lab has been very assuring. Communities have been impacted by the different stories that have been published so far. 50 citizen journalists were trained in December 2016 in Ouarzazate by experts in the field of journalism, acquiring skills in article writing, videography and photography.