Over thirty students from six Catholic-run schools in Port Moresby were participants of a Media Education seminar held recently.
The seminar was facilitated by the Social Communications Commission of CBCPNGSI with the theme: ‘Hope Amid COVID-19’.
The students were from De La Salle Secondary School, Marianville Secondary School, La Salle Technical College, Limana Vocational Centre, Don Bosco Technological Institute, and St Charles Lwanga Secondary School.
The seminar highlighted specific aspects of print media ranging from creating posters with a message, logo, photographs of inspiration, warm-up exercises, interactive game sessions, meditative and prayer moments.
The seminar also dealt with the 2021 World Communication Day (WCD) Message from His Holiness Pope Francis entitled: ‘Come and See’ (Jn 1:46) Communicating by Encountering People as They Are. The 55th WCD will be celebrated on 16th of May.
Fr Ambrose Pereira, Secretary of Social Communication, spoke of the pivotal role media played in society and urged the students to use it as an agent to effect positive social change in their communities.
“You are all digital natives and with advancement of technology and the development of social media, use it to share messages that have the presence of God to inspire others and create social change in society,” he said.
Fr Ambrose said through the proper use of all forms of media transformation of society could take place on a much grander scale inspiring and improving the lives of others.
Media Coordinator of De La Salle Secondary School, Matthew Paofa, thanked the SOCOM Team for the informative sessions and said it was essential for them to be able to grow into critical consumers of the Media.
“With everything that the students have learned from here, I know that we can be able to share this knowledge and push for something positive and tangible for the benefit of our school,” he said.
Theresa So-On, Grade Eleven student of Marianville Secondary School, admitted that though the Media Seminar seemed daunting at first, she said its concepts were made easy to understand.
The second Media Seminar will be held on Saturday and will focus on the fundamentals of writing news articles.