By A.F.M. Munif Mushfiq Khan, YES, 2011-2012 Bangladesh 

The Right to Information Act has been around in Bangladesh since 2009; however, almost no one knows about it. More and more people are connected to the internet through different social media networks, such as: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr etc. People now can shout out loud their feelings and thoughts to cyberspace, through these tools. A.F.M. Munif Mushfiq Khan, a YES alumnus, believes that youth are our future leaders and they should know about their right to get information and should perform their duty as citizen journalists. As a result, “Information & Reporting – My Right & My Duty,” a workshop teaching youth to be effective citizen journalists, was held at The American Center in Dhaka on May 11, 2014. The workshop was coordinated by Khan, who also was one of the two trainers at the workshop. The other trainer was Benjamin Kuehne, who has been working on the RTI Act in Bangladesh for several months with an NGO. YES Bangladesh alumni organized a three- hour long workshop, where 14 youth from different educational institutions participated.

The goals of the workshop were to make the youth of today aware of their rights to procure information from different organizations and to make them realize their duty to report the events happening around them in a more journalistic way, thus playing their roles as citizen journalists.

The participants and the trainers were motivated when Mr. Calvin Hayes, Cultural Affairs Officer at The American Center, Dhaka visited the workshop. In his brief, inspiring speech he said, “…education is our passport to the future. You all are taking your first step to make sure that your future is more secure by even finding more about this excellent program that we are having...”

There were two sessions within the three-hour long event. The first session, “Citizen Journalism & Inverted Pyramid,” was conducted by Khan and the second session, “Whistle-Blowers’ Delight – Learning to use the RTI Act,” was conducted by Kuehne. The participants during these sessions were involved in activities like brainstorming, group work, and group discussion. At the end of the sessions the participants took part in a “Reflection/ Feedback” panel conducted by Khan.

Ms. Claudia Page –Public Diplomacy Officer at The American Center, Dhaka handed out the certificates to the participants after the workshop. The other guests who were present during the workshop were Ms. Tahnia Shahid, Cultural Affairs Assistant; Mr. Quazi Sabir Amanullah, Alumni Outreach Coordinator at The American Center, Dhaka; and Mr. Rajib Lochan Das, Co-coordinator, iEARN-BD.

The workshop was successful with the support of the U.S. Department of State, iEARN-USA, iEARN-BD and The American Center, Dhaka.

View more photos of the workshop.

Watch a video of the worksho: http://youtu.be/nulOpuyly-A