Monday, January 30, 2012

February 21 is International Mother Language Day

Today was news story day in journalism class. I chose to investigate International Mother Language Day. Read ahead and check out how some individuals feel about this day and what it stands for.


International Mother Language Day Celebrates Multilingualism

Mark your calendars; February 21 is International Mother Language Day promoting linguistic cultural diversity and multilingualism. This day was first recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization on November 17, 1999.

The day has been observed since February 2000 to remember the student demonstrators that perished in 1952. Students were shot and killed by police in Dhaka, Bangladesh because they were protesting to have Bengali recognized as one of the two national languages of the then Pakistan.

The United Nations’ website, http://www.un.org/en provides an excellent summary of the day’s significance.

Red River College students also believe their mother language is worth protecting.

Gagandeep Singh Gill, 21, speaks three languages, Punjabi, Hindi and English but Punjabi is his mother language. “Language is a big part of culture,” said Gill. “Now that I know about this important day, I will try to teach other people how to communicate in my language for the entire day on that day,” he said.

Gill also said that this day is important for immigrants whose language may not be a popular one in Canada. “Punjabi is very popular in Vancouver. For me, it isn’t so bad because of this but I can see how this day could be very important for someone whose language isn’t spoken as much,” he said.

Samuel Shaganya, 35, is also a Red River College student and comes from Congo. He speaks Swahili and agrees that acknowledging International Mother Language Day is important and it shows respect.

“This day makes sense to me, many immigrants come here and English overtakes their own language. A day like this can help immigrants remember their own language,” he said.

Shaganya also said, “I speak to my wife and children in Swahili and hope my children won’t forget their language as they get older. Days like this make sure this won’t happen.”

Dr. Terry Janzen, Associate Professor and Department Head of the Department of Linguistics for the University of Manitoba said acknowledging International Mother Language day is vital to raise awareness for people’s heritage and the language of their home.

Dr. Janzen also said, “There are quite a number of Aboriginal languages spoken in Canada, many of which are in serious danger of being lost. It is important that people not lose sight of their heritage in favour of a culture and language that is new for them.”

Monday, January 23, 2012

Journalism Skills Prove Valuable Even in Non Media Placement

Hello my wonderful followers, I hope you all have settled in to the New Year and have found your groove.

For the first three weeks of January, I completed a work placement component at the Canadian Youth Business Foundation. CYBF assists youth between the ages of 18-34 to start a business and can receive assistance from securing financing, business plan preparation to business mentoring. You can contact the CYBF at www.cybf.ca.

As a CYBF intern, I worked directly with the Director, Joelle Foster. Working alongside Joelle was an experience to say the least. Her energy level and abilities are incredible and she is extremely versatile. She runs the whole CYBF office in Manitoba. Joelle has made this position her own and really extends a helping hand to her young entrepreneurs to ensure they succeed.

What I found interesting about my experience at CYBF was how useful my journalism training is to an organization like this. I thought I would use more public relations skills than my journalism skills but that wasn’t the case. My first task was to interview and write profiles on as many of CYBF entrepreneurs as I could in the time I had. This task took up the majority of my time. I was more than happy to practice my interviewing skills with such inspiring and ambitious people.

I also assisted Joelle with brainstorming sessions about marketing and program development. When doing this, I fell back on using my journalism skills once again. Asking open ended questions such as who, what, where, when and why helped us breakdown our thought process into specific tangible tactics. These tools can be the foundation for many situations and it is a relief for me to know I am comfortable with this thought process.

I also realized how important writing as a skill is in every aspect. I had to do a large amount of editing and tightening up of sentences and reviewing word choices in some of the information I had to review for the profiles. Knowing the difference between decent and poor writing samples was very helpful for me to produce quality work for the organization as a whole.

I also realized that writing about entrepreneurship and the impacts of entrepreneurship in Manitoba is a topic that I find very inspiring to write about., I enjoy helping entrepreneurs with their writing needs and I do think there is a market for this in Winnipeg. Being an entrepreneur requires that you wear several different hats and it is very difficult to be good at all the different things that a required of you. I would like to be a freelance writer for entrepreneurs to help them articulate their story and any other marketing materials they may require.

I hope to do my second work placement with CYBF again in April. I wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you to Joelle Foster for making my three week internship with CYBF a valuable learning and networking experience.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Winnipeg Transit Article

Hello all, I hope you had a lovely holiday season. I wanted to make sure you were aware of the transit article that I worked on with a classmate of mine during my last semester at school. It was published in the Winnipeg Free Press over the New Year's weekend. I wanted to share it with you. Please pass it along to your followers. That would be greatly appreciated.
Kindly,
Anrea

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/the-life-of-a-transit-bus-driver-is-no-ride-in-the-park-136470333.html