Jim Lehrer on heat & light in news-journalism

In today’s conversation with Jim Lehrer on the Media Report, ABC Radio National, Lehrer explained the difference, in news-journalism terms, between creating heat and light.

• Heat can easily be created by letting guests with opposing view attack each other.
• Light, on the other hand, serves to illuminate a topic and build an understanding about related issues.

Jim Lehrer is one of the icons of broadcast journalism. The long-time anchor of NewsHour on the American Public Broadcasting Service is also a familiar face to viewers of SBS here in Australia, and he joins us for a revealing chat [more].

nmrc and basketball in Darebin

NORTHERN MIGRANT RESOURCE CENTRE BASKETBALL
This project began when one of the NMRC staff, Rhonda Hernandez, noticed that whilst watching her young boys play basketball there were several young people of African backgrounds watching without joining in. She talked to the young people and they told her that they had no uniforms and did not know how to join in. This experience inspired the Refugee Youth Basketball Program Bridging the Gaps, which continues to receive funding from Vic Health. Since 2003, this program has sparked enthusiasm from volunteers, many of whom are members of Victorian Police. There are now 7 basketball teams with young people from Somali, Tongan, Vietnamese, Samoan and Sudanese backgrounds. For many, basketball is their first experience of organized team sport with 61 young people currently participating. This program has proven to be very effective in removing barriers for young people by providing them with transportation to and from games, uniforms, coaching and equipment which is essential for them to be able to play their favorite sport. For further information, or if you would like to become involved in this very exciting program, please contact Rhonda Hernandez on 03 9484 7944 [more about basketball in Darebin]

Thank you to Tessa Young from DHS who put me onto this story.

Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues (CMYI)

The Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues (CMYI) is a community based organisation that advocates for the needs of young people from migrant and refugee backgrounds.

The Centre has a priority focus on culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) young people from refugee and newly arrived communities. [more]

See http://www.cmyi.net.au/CMYIPeopleandLocations

Green Gecko Project

From today’s Saturday Extra on ABC Radio National
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/saturdayextra/stories/2007/1913314.htm

In the first of our ‘Traveller’s Tales’ we hear from a woman who was peripatetic and journeyed to many places around the world, but she never wanted to visit South East Asia.

Yet in 2004 she found herself in Cambodia and despite the difficulties she ended up staying.

Tania Palmer is now married to a Cambodian man and has no immediate plans to return to Australia – but she wishes her Cambodian mother-in-law would not put grasshoppers into some of the evening meals.

Guest: Tania Palmer, traveller and founder of the Green Gecko Project http://www.greengeckoproject.org

Presenter: Geraldine Doogue
Producer: Jo Jarvis
Story Researcher and Producer: Julie Browning

Empowerment in the developing world

From today’s Media Report on ABC Radio National

Using media as a tool for empowerment in the developing world

Development agencies in various parts of the developing world are having considerable success in using old and new media technology as tools for empowerment. But are governments and Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) too starry-eyed about the Internet and its potential for social change? Read Transcript

ASRC sleep-out to end poverty for asylum seekers

Event in Melbourne, Friday May 18th

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) is organising a sleep-out in front of Immigration, a campaign that aims to “end poverty for asylum seekers”

2007 marks the 10th anniversary of our federal government denying thousands of asylum seekers the right to work, income and health care. By doing so they force asylum seeker families into a life of destitution, hunger, homelessness, ill health and despair.

On Friday night the 18th of May 2007 we [the ASRC] are seeking as many people as possible to join the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) in sleeping outside the Department of Immigration and Citizenship for the night to raise public awareness about the desperate plight of asylum seekers and to pressure our government to end it’s inhumane policies.

When: Friday 18th of May 2007 from 6pm onwards
Where: 2 Lonsdale Street, City (50 metres from Parliament Train Station [MAP])
Bring: Sleeping bag, warm clothing (we will be undercover so don’t worry if it rains), food (the ASRC will also be selling food cheaply at the sleepout to help raise funds for our emergency relief work) and musical instruments!

More info via:
http://www.asrc.org.au/uploads/File/SLEEPOUT%5B1%5D(2).pdf

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Oromo on 3ZZZ

A link to a site that contains A Brief History of 3ZZZ Oromo Radio Program

The Victorian Oromo Community Association approached the management and committee of Ethnic Community Radio, 3ZZZ in early 1995 in order to start a radio programme in Afaan Oromo for the growing Oromo migrants in the city of Melbourne. The first group of migrants consisting of three or four families arrived in Melbourne, Australia in 1984 and it was a big step in our lives to contemplate this project.

More via: http://www.oromoaustralia.com/