Media lab training London

Media lab training London

We are organising a Media Lab session on Thursday April 20th 3.00 – 8.00 pm at the Terrence Higgins Trust, 314-320 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1X 8DP.

With a snap general election announced yesterday and only six weeks to go it makes it all the more important to make our voices heard, and to ensure that whoever is in Downing Street on June 8th treats migrants’ issues seriously and with respect.

We are running the following sessions on the day:

• How to write to your MP – on the rights of EU migrants, or any other migration issue that affects you or on which you want your MP to take action (The session will run 6-8pm, mentor TBC)

• How to write an article for the Migrant Voice website: the article will be about an experience of your own or a real-life story of another migrant. Guidance on developing the story idea and how to write it.  Time to write will be built into the session. Mentor: Journalist and Editor Daniel Nelson has worked on newspapers, magazines, news agencies and websites in Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, Nigeria, The Philippines, Uganda and UK, and has trained journalists in a dozen countries, including at City University in London. (The session will run 3-8pm within this time you can book a shorter session with Daniel, have time to write and come back for feedback)

• Commenting online on news stories and opinion columns:  Not a day goes by without a negative story about migrants and it is important to counter them with informed comment. Learn how to use memes, facts and humour and to give your comments the right tone. (4-7pm, Mentor TBC)

• Using photos/graphics to get your message across: learn how to make effective visual statements using free images and software in order to campaign and increase the impact of messages on social media. (3-5pm, Mentor TBC)

At this Media Lab session we will focus on making our views heard on the following topics:

• Brexit: Are you an EU migrant worried about the future? Are you doing something to fight for migrants’ rights?

• Refugee week: which will take place June 19-25. Are you a refugee or do you work with refugees? Do you have a story to tell that celebrates refugees’ lives in the UK? Are you calling for change to unfair policies that prevent refugees from finding safety?

• Integration, celebrating diversity: Are you doing something in your community that contributes to fighting hate crime or building better cohesion? Do you have an interesting story of integration?