wfn.org | FEATURE: Equipping Young Communicators for Today's Challenges

["Frank Imhoff" <Frank.Imhoff@elca.org>]

FEATURE: Equipping Young Communicators for Today's Challenges
Youth Consultation in Lyon Launches Three-year LWF Training 

LYON, France/GENEVA, 25 June 2005 (LWI) - In one room, 27-year-old
Evelyn Heck from Argentina is busy at a computer combining texts and
images for a newspaper page. Next door, the computers are humming away
at full speed as Ethiopian Yohannes Hailu (31), Meghan Johnston (26)
from the United States of America, and Brazilian Josias Wagner (27) work
together to create a Web site on HIV/AIDS. Down the corridor,
20-year-old Denes Horvath from Hungary is playing guitar in the
recording studio as background music for a radio spot.

It is Wednesday, 27 April 2005. Five teams at the Media Center Crec
Avex near Lyon, France have been working until the wee hours of the
morning to produce news for a newspaper, radio feature, Web site, and
video recording. They will present their results the next morning. This
scene resembles daily life in a newsroom, but it is the final stages of
a Lutheran World Federation (LWF) youth communication workshop. 

After nomination by an LWF member church and completion of the
application process, a total of 26 participants from all continents,
aged 18 - 30 years were invited to participate in the workshop in Lyon.
It was the first time that the LWF Office for Communication Services
(OCS) in cooperation with the LWF Department for Mission and Development
were organizing such an event. 

The candidates selected to participate in the three-year program
include Web designers, journalists, teachers, theologians and musicians.
They come from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Chile,
Colombia, Croatia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong,
Hungary, India, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Norway, the Philippines,
Poland, Russia, the USA and Zimbabwe. 

Dynamic Information Society Demands New, Creative Response 

A strong sense of teamwork and an exchange of personal experiences
characterized the consultation. Rodrigo Covarrubias, a 24 year-old
Chilean, said "meeting people from other countries and exchanging
experiences with them changed my perspective." Covarrubias, a student in
electrical engineering, added, "I learned how to cooperate within an
international team." Resource persons who led the workshop included
journalists and other communication experts from Australia, Brazil,
Finland, Switzerland and the USA. 

OCS Director, Ms Karin Achtelstetter stressed the objective to train
young leaders in the area of communication. "Through this program, we
want to teach young people both conceptual and technical skills so that
they can develop into a new generation of multipliers," she said.

The gathering also sought to establish a basis for a worldwide network
of young communicators, since, as Achtelstetter put it: "The generation
of 20 and 30 year-olds is expected to react in new, creative, and
appropriate ways to the challenges that the newly developing information
society poses to local communities and churches, as well as to the
global community."

Practical presentations, group work and a press conference on HIV/AIDS
provided an  opportunity to reflect on the challenges that Christian
communicators face. In his key note address, Philip Lee, the World
Association for Christian Communication director of the Global Studies
Program and Regional Coordinator for Europe, spoke about global poverty,
intolerance, the right to communication and communication for peace. Lee
said: "It will take a generation that has not been brought up in a
culture of war to find a constructive and sustainable way forward." 

As a follow-up to the workshop in Lyon, communications projects will be
implemented in the regions throughout the coming year in consultation
with the respective LWF member churches. Each participant selected a
focus area. Nineteen year-old Manisha Mahanandia from India, for
example, plans to distribute "a newsletter for the youth in my
community." Other program participants will create Web sites or
produce documentary films. Contact people in each region will support
the young adults in their endeavors. The program will concluded in the
third year with a conference and an evaluation of the projects. (643
words)

(A contribution by Barbara Schneider, youth trainee, LWF Office for
Communication Services.)

(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran
tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund, Sweden, the LWF currently has 138
member churches in 77 countries all over the world, with a total
membership of nearly 66 million. The LWF acts on behalf of its member
churches in areas of common interest such as ecumenical and inter-faith
relations, theology, humanitarian assistance, human rights,
communication, and the various aspects of mission and development work.
Its secretariat is located in Geneva, Switzerland.)

[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is the LWF's information service.
Unless specifically noted, material presented does not represent
positions or opinions of the LWF or of its various units. Where the
dateline of an article contains the notation (LWI), the material may be
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