Summer workshop 2022

For journalists, researchers and others telling stories about migration

Beirut 13-17 June 2022

Do you research, report or tell stories about migration and refugees? Are you interested in learning from people with professional or personal experiences of exile and migration? Do you want to find ways to tell better stories about these issues?

If so, this workshop is for you!

Switch Perspective is hosting a five-day workshop on 13-17 June 2022 in Beirut open to people working with documenting, analysing or telling stories about migration in its various forms, including journalists, photographers, filmmakers, writers, academics, NGO workers, civil society activists and others.
The workshop will be held in Lebanon, a small country in the eastern Mediterranean. Lebanon is now home to more refugees per capita than any other country in the world, and has long-standing Palestinian, Armenian, Syrian and migrant worker communities. It also has a long migration history of its own, with large numbers of Lebanese having migrated abroad throughout the ages.
The workshop will be an opportunity for participants to learn from and engage with Lebanon’s experience of migration, both in the past 10-15 years and historically (the latter of which interacts with and impacts on the former). It will also be a chance to better understand how different global processes and events play out in a local context.
This summer workshop is aimed at people coming to Lebanon or the broader region from abroad, wanting to benefit from knowledge generated in the country as a result of Lebanon’s history and experience of mobility and migration.
The program will include sessions with self-reflection, discussion and critical analysis of media reporting on migration and refugees, all of which will situate the topic in both a specific Lebanese/Mediterranean-Middle Eastern context and the broader global state of affairs.
Sessions will be held by people from different initiatives working on migration, or local media outlets, including:

Rayan Sukkar and Samih Mahmoud from Campji

Campji is an online news platform reporting from Lebanon’s refugee camps, telling both locally grounded and conceptual stories to an audience both within and outside the camps. Rayan Sukkar has worked with Campji since 2017, has worked with theater projects, and has contributed to a number of other platforms and organisations including Al Jazeera and UNICEF. Samih Mahmoud came from Syria to Lebanon in 2013 and has worked with Campji since 2017. He also works as a freelancer, including for UNRWA.

Laure Makarem

Laure Makarem is a coach and member of different initiatives working towards migrant rights, racial justice, queer mutual support and feminist movement building in Lebanon. She currently manages the Migrant Community Center which is a safer space for migrant women to meet, produce knowledge, self-organise and advocate for their rights as agents and leaders of change.

Asser Khattab

Asser Khattab is an essayist who writes about journalism, art, culture, and history. He formerly reported from the Middle East on war, politics, and economy for various international media outlets, including the Washington Post and the Financial Times. Recently, he started a newsletter with New Lines Magazine, in which he examines how the media covers the Middle East.

Sarah Khazem

Sarah Khazem is a freelance journalist and creative writer interested in covering migration stories and identity issues using ethnographic tools. Her writings focus on how crises and totalitarian regimes interact with patriarchy to repress women and female journalists in particular. Sarah Khazem tries to practice a type of journalism that intersects with the humanitarian and social fields, including in particular anthropology and literature.

Ibrahim Nehme of The Outpost magazine

Ibrahim Nehme is a creator and curator working on new media. His work is a cross-pollination between journalism, activism and artistic expression, and could be situated as a series of attempts to shift the collective consciousness. In 2012 he founded The Outpost magazine, which became a platform for writers and artists from the Arab world to channel a new voice of resistance and change, and received several awards.

Inga Hajdarowicz and Fatima Alhaji

Inga Hajdarowicz is a researcher and activist from Poland with an interest and experience in participatory democracy and grassroots mobilisation, and involvement in spaces where people with or without migration experience collaborate, including the ‘Welcome to Krakow’ initiative. Fatima Alhaji is a journalist and activist from Damascus with a background in media and other initiatives in Lebanon, including as a video reporter and advocate for refugees’ right to health. Both have been collaborating on research projects in Lebanon.

Angela Saade from Switch Perspective

Angela Saade is a popular education trainer and co-founder of JIBAL, a Lebanese organisation working on social and environmental justice. She has organised workshops and trainings on a wide range of topics in Lebanon, France and elsewhere. She is one of the co-founders of Switch Perspective.

Rana Hassan from Switch Perspective

Rana Hassan is a facilitator specialised in community building and urban research. She is currently focusing on supporting cooperatives and horizontal groups, as well as doing movement building. She is a member of the Switch Perspective team.

Jenny Gustafsson from Switch Perspective

Jenny Gustafsson is a journalist/writer and editor who has lived in Lebanon and reported from the region since 2009. In 2010, she co-founded the online magazine Mashallah News. Her work has been published by The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Foreign Policy, Courrier international and others. She is one of the co-founders of Switch Perspective.

Switch Perspective has been conducting trainings in Lebanon and abroad since 2016. Our sessions are always collaborative and self-reflective, springing from the idea that knowledge is generated through engagement and reflection. The team behind Switch Perspective all have direct experience of issues related to migration, whether personally or professionally (or both).

Participation in the summer workshop is $250, including meals and accommodation during the five days.
Please note that transportation and flights to/from Beirut are not included.
A number of grants are available to cover for the participation fee. Please let us know in the contact form.
The workshop will be in-person, with measures taken concerning the Covid-19 situation.

Dates:

13-17 June 2022

Location:

Beirut

Language:

The working language will be English, with some sessions translated from Arabic to English. 

Deadline:

Send your application by March 17.