According to Bronx Community Board 5 district manager Xavier Rodriguez, local residents have responded positively to the Mount Hope Monitor and other offerings from the West Bronx News Network. "It's very important for a community like ours to have a paper that can talk about the issues residents care about," Rodriguez said. He thinks there's still a lot of potential for the newspaper to encourage civic engagement: from publicizing community meetings and events, to communicating important information to residents and merchants. And the new youth journalism initiative is a great addition, he said, as it offers a unique opportunity to hear what young people in the community have to say.
The journalism classes focus on teaching the fundamentals of writing, reporting and interviewing, as well as explaining the important role of the news media in communities large and small. “I’ve learned a lot about using computers, and writing, and I’m more aware of the news,” said 17-year-old Alexandra Leon, who attends the Foreign Language Academy of Global Studies and is working on a story about the city's Summer Youth Employment Program. Students also said that the class has helped them to address issues that both they and the readers find important and interesting.
The students visited the City University of New York School of Journalism earlier in the term, and heard from guest speakers like David Gonzalez, a city news reporter for The New York Times. “We were trying to show [the students] that a career in journalism is possible for someone from the Bronx,” said Fergusson. Students who complete the program, which ends this week, will also be given a digital camera as a gift. Other students will take their place in the fall, however, as the Initiative's goal is to publish Bronx Youth Heard once per quarter.
Fergusson says it’s more than just reporting skills that the students have developed. When they first started the program, many of the students were hesitant to voice their opinions in front of the class, he said. Now almost three months later, the teens have much more self-confidence, and actively share and learn with one another. They’ve gotten so close that they’re meeting at one student’s house for a class dinner in the coming weeks.
While several students in the class are either undecided or don’t plan on pursuing journalism as a career, others are already looking forward to their next opportunity in the field. One student is applying for a two-week journalism workshop in Illinois, while another says she’d eventually like to write for a fashion magazine. For his part, Luis Rivera, 17, has been busy asking colleges about their journalism programs and school newspapers; he wants to be a newspaper reporter. “Writing to make a difference is really big,” Rivera said. “It’s a good feeling, the fact that you might be changing someone’s life without even knowing it.”
