St Pauls Institute of Communication Education (SPICE), Bandra, Mumbai, organized the summer workshop from 6 to 18 May 2013 for priests, religious, seminarians and lay people from all across India. It gave the participants an opportunity to come and experience the craft of writing and Journalism in a most hands-on manner. A total of 24 budding writers comprising of 2 priests, 13 sisters, 5 lay persons 1 religious brother and 3 seminarians participated in the residential workshop. The main focus of this workshop was to develop the skills in writing, editing and reporting. The topics covered included feature writing, interviewing, news gathering, news writing and reporting, editing, creative writing, writing for new media, script writing, etc.
Fr Joe Eruppakkatt SSP, the course director who accompanied the participants all through the course motivated and challenged them to be well versed in Religion, Society, Politics, Ethics and Economics in order to be effective communicators. He enumerated the purpose of the Workshop as, “to unlock their potential as writers/journalists and to be empowered with the powerful tools of writing so that they, in turn, can empower others, especially the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed and the ignorant, through the medium of writing”.
Fr Patrick D’Mello, a priest of the Archdiocese of Bombay and a full-time participant, concurs: “We are confident that we are going home enriched with newly developed writing skills, highly motivated to make a difference to the world around us.”
The workshop came to an end with the convocation ceremony on 18th May. Mr George Menezes, eminent Christian leader, writer, activist and management trainer distributed the certificates to the participants. In his message he challenged the budding writers to be good readers, writers as well as listeners in order to be effective in their communication.
