Citizen journalists in Lebanon: Looking for stories in the refugee camp
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Rayann Sukkar, citizen journalist: my name's Rayan Sukkar and for the last two years I've been working on the Campji online platform. I'm from the Shatila refugee camp, but I report from other camps as well. Up to 40,000 people currently live here, including Palestinian refugees and an increasing number of Syrians who have fled their country's civil war -
The Campji editorial team: we work as a team and come up with ideas and topics. How do we find them? Mainly through observation. We live in the Shatila camp ourselves, so we have the same issues and concerns as our audience. Hence the name ʹcitizen journalistsʹ -
A team editorial meeting: we come up with ideas and discuss them with our colleagues in weekly editorial meetings -
Spending a day filming: today we're doing a story on migration and have come to the Al-Jahil refugee camp to do the filming. We've chosen the topic because people are leaving the camps to start new lives in other countries. Samih's responsible for the technical side and I'm focussing on the content -
Discussing migration with a camp resident: we love asking people about their opinions and getting to know them. Bassel (on the right, facing me) saw us filming and tells us what he thinks about migration. Even though people are leaving, he says, there are still many in the camp with fascinating stories to tell -
Filming challenges: it's not easy in the camps to find people with differing opinions, and you’re not always allowed to just walk around with a camera and start filming -
Heading back to the office: it's been a day full of impressions and we're heading back to the Campij office to edit the material. It was our first shoot at the Al-Jalil camp and it won't be our last. We've heard many stories we'd like to follow up and report on…