After being grounded from a trip to report abroad last year by a U.S. Department of State Travel Advisory, Medill professor Jack Doppelt will finally get to send 20of his students to Malawi and Jordan in December.
Doppelt will accompany the students in his Reporting and Connecting with Immigrant Communities class to refugee camps in either southeast Africa or the Middle East from Dec. 8-17.
This is the first time the class will be able to travel abroad; last spring’s class canceled a trip to Thailand because of the country’s domestic turmoil.
“It will be an eye-opening experience,” said Medill sophomore Rose Conry. “It’s a new perspective on life and we’ll be challenged in ways we never thought.”
As of now, Doppelt plans for half of the class to go to Malawi and the other half to Jordan, though plans may change because students’ preferences are skewed in favor of Malawi, he said
Students will spend Dec. 11-14 in the Malawian and Jordanian refugee camps talking to refugees and reporting their stories, as well as recording video and audio and taking pictures. This will afford students time at the beginning and end of the trip to explore the country outside of the camps, Doppelt said.
Medill sophomore Hannah Bricker said she has never traveled outside of the continent and is grateful for the chance to go abroad.
“This is a real opportunity to connect with people who aren’t similar to you,” she said. “We’ll be able to see how people live and decide what’s the best way to get their stories out.”
In the camps, students will work to shoot time-lapse video clips, produce video narratives, create audio vignettes or shoot interviews and footage to be made into a documentary. Their finished products will be featured on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees website.
UNHCR, the organization responsible for running all refugee camps across the world, has been Doppelt’s main partner in planning the trips.
Medill lecturer and documentary filmmaker Brent Huffman said having the students’ work published online is significant.
“That’s huge, to have their work not only be this class project but also get accepted and go out into the world,” said Huffman, who will accompany the group of students going to Malawi.
The Roberta Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies and the Medill School of Journalism will cover the majority of the trips’ expenses with contributions of $20,000 each. AT&T will donate all of the equipment the students will be using to report on the ground, including video cameras, microphones, iPhones and laptops, as well as tech support. Students will be required to pay $1,000 each out of pocket to cover personal expenses. Some have already planned to raise money to make the trip more affordable, Doppelt said.
The class is also designed to teach students how to relate to immigrants and refugees and tell their stories accurately and powerfully, Doppelt said.
Throughout the quarter, students work with different ethnic media outlets and Refugee One, a not-for-profit organization, to write and publish stories about immigrants who have resettled in the Chicago area.
Conry, who plans to join the Peace Corps after graduation, said she was most interested in the humanitarian aspects of the class.
“It sounded really interesting, not your typical Northwestern sit-in-a-classroom type of class,” she said. “It’s one of those things you never think you get to do, but you’ve always dreamed of – helping others through journalism. Through this trip, it’s actually coming true.”
