After quite a long process of planning and organizing our migrant workers project, started with a Focus Group Discussion with some migrant worker organizations and competent individuals on the issues in Jakarta, meeting with relevant stakeholders, and so on, we finally conducted our first training for Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia supported by Malaysia Kini and Tifa.
On June 23rd I travelled to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to help the local organizers with the last preparation of the training. In this opportunity, I had the chance to meet many Indonesian migrant workers (BMI) in Malaysia, who are for most people in Malaysia are invisible. Due to the legal status and other conditions that might present dangers to the BMI, they choose not to be visibly present in the society in Malaysia. But with the help of local organizers, I could come to places where BMIs hang out in their free times (on Sunday). I used this opportunity to talk to them and to explore the issues that often faced by BMIs in Malaysia.
On Monday, June 25th, my colleague Yerry, joined me in Kuala Lumpur to conduct the training. The training took place at a BMI shelter in Kajang, an area located in the outskirt of Kuala Lumpur. The shelter was actually a large somewhat rundown rented flat managed by a woman who has been a migrant worker in Malaysia for many many years. The training started in early evening of June 25th after the BMIs got off work.
Most of the BMIs joined the training came from all over KL, but some travelled from as far as Kuantan and Perak province. There were around 20 BMIs in the training.
In the first day, we explained the objectives and expected outputs and outcomes of the project and delivered mostly basic theories on basic journalism and citizen journalism, as well as interview techniques. We also touched a little bit about the safety and security of video making for video makers and resource persons who might be in the video.
On the second day, Yerry and I decided to hold two shifts (morning to late afternoon and early evening to late evening) to accommodate all participants who could only attend the training after working hours. Although the morning session was only attended by six people, but it was a great and very effective training. On this second day, the participants from both shifts learned about Five Basic Shots, building storyboard and spent most of the time learning to shoot with whatever mobile phone camera they have and a pocket video camera that we brought from Jakarta. We ended the day around 10:30 PM.
On the third day, we divided the participants into two groups and asked each group to build a storyboard and got out to shoot footages needed for the story they have decided in their group. One group decided to make a video in the form of news reporting on BMI working in Malaysia and went to interview a real BMI working at a construction site nearby. The other group made a video about the living conditions of BMI and showed a place where migrant workers live.
After they got enough footages to make a video, they learned to edit their footages and produced a complete video.
The last session of Day 3, the participants learned about distribution and uploading their videos to online sites. To wrap up the training, they uploaded their videos to EngageMedia site and we watched them together.
All and all, the training went successfully and some of the participants were so eager to make videos to be included in the DVD compilation on migrant workers as one of the outputs of the project. Ideas were flying around and being discussed together and hopefully we all can watch them in videos real soon.
Now that we have finished our KL training, we will conduct three other similar trainings in three different areas in Indonesia. I will certainly share with you all in my next blog posts. Later, folks! – dhyta-
p.s.
Please check the link below for video made by migrant workers:
