The Grounding Power of Welcoming and Inclusion: An Engagement Journalism Practicum
My community journey started a year ago, when I booked a ride on Lyft. The young man who picked me up was Muhammed Batmanoglu, a bio-medical engineer from Turkey who couldn’t find a job in his field despite his Ph.D. and fairly good English.
That’s how I started my final presentation at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY on Dec. 10, 2019. It was nearly three decades after I immigrated to the U.S. from central Italy. Some things in life need time to take place. In my case, I needed to be free; I promise, one day I will tell you that story. Perhaps, I’ll make a movie or a soap opera out of it. After all, I have enough material for several screenplays. But for today, I’ll tell you the story of my engagement journalism practicum, what it did for the immigrants I engaged and what it did for me.
Let’s begin with the community I chose: malemployed newcomers. They are foreign-educated newcomers — medical doctors, pharmacists, teachers, lawyers and engineers, to name a few — who lack the resources to find skill-appropriate work in the U.S. They end up either unemployed or working at “jobs for which they’re overqualified or overeducated or both,” as I wrote for NJSpotlight in 2017.
I knew all too well how complicated it can be for immigrants educated abroad to find people who know how to counsel their careers. I wanted to help them through my new studies in engaged journalism and by leveraging years of my own socio-professional experiences in the States.
The U.S. has an immigration system that doesn’t integrate skilled-newcomers into the workforce, says Dr. Jeanne Batalova, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) in Washington. Thus, after they arrive they are left to their own devices to bridge gargantuan information gaps.
My practicum consisted of developing a series of free, offline educational events that delivered both classes in English as a second language and specialized career-orientation instruction. I called it The JobUp and set out to equip malemployed participants with the resources they need to navigate the U.S. job market and boost their confidence.
I used needs assessment surveys, community engagement and design-thinking to develop a service that would give the malemployed community a tangible experience of progress — a very different approach than traditional journalism, in which I would have stopped at collecting their quotes. In this case, I partnered with a teacher of English for speakers of other languages (ESOL), and engaged two groups to which I had access: the Turks, through Muhammed, and the Italians, my natural community.
Starting last summer and through the fall, I produced two cycles of The JobUp for a total of 12 three-hour-long workshops. I produced one series in south Brooklyn in collaboration with the Turkish Cultural Center, and a second one at the Newmark School in the fall with a group of Italians I recruited on Facebook.
With the ESOL teacher, Joye Dawkins, I developed one curriculum for each group based on both the needs assessments and English proficiency levels: low for the Turks, high for the Italians. We taught them how to look for a job — including to how to write an American-style resumes and prepare for job interviews — and gave them the vocabulary to accomplish the task. We also practiced reading, writing and pronunciation with the mission of boosting their confidence as English speakers.
The participants responded enthusiastically. Below I share edited excerpts of my final practicum report to detail both impact and outcomes of the practicum.
The Turks reported feeling more confident about both the English-language and their job prospects, while the Turkish Cultural Center said The JobUp ”was a wonderful opportunity for the community.”
The nine Italians who regularly attended The JobUp were even more satisfied because they had been able to absorb more instruction through their higher language proficiency. At the end, they took an anonymous Google survey at the end to assess the impact of the program; the results revealed their appreciation. On a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), here are three of the most salient measures of impact:
- 8 out of 9 strongly agreed that they understood much better how to look for a job in the U.S.
- 7 out of 9 strongly agreed they felt more self-confident.
- 8 out of 9 strongly agreed they would recommend The JobUp to others.
They also posted comments in the survey:
“That is one of the best experiences a new comer can do for self. Not only for the great networking, but also for achieving stronger self reliance and self secureness in speaking and expressing.”
“I am very grateful to Tiziana Rinaldi for organizing it and putting so many efforts to solving the immigrants’ problems. She really helps to feel not alone when facing a new culture. Thanks to the workshop I’ve got acquainted to a lot of interesting people and feel much more confident now.”
“I learned to believe more in myself.”
“I have learned the importance of having someone’s support in these transitions. For this reason, I think the most important thing I learned is the huge value to be attributed to an intangible asset such as the relationships we built up during The JobUp.”
Outcomes: Trust and Self-Reliance
The success of The JobUp spells out the effectiveness of engagement journalism’s method of listening to a community’s needs to build trust with reporters — a high note in my final presentation.
It also validates the crucial importance of a program like as The JobUp, which I designed to give newcomers the tools to face the demands of the U.S. job market.
For that reason, the work laid the foundation of an enduring collaboration with the Italian community, with which I continue to connect offline and develop the relationships we launched during the practicum.
Conclusions and Best Practices
The final Medium post I wrote for the StartUp Sprint course in November, gave me an opportunity to reflect on what I learned from working with my community. Here are my main takeaways and the best practices I recommend (edited excerpts from the practicum report):
- I learned that to recruit successfully within an immigrant community I needed to either be part of it — the Italians — or partner with an organization trusted by the newcomers’ group I wanted to reach as in the case of the Turkish Cultural Center in Brooklyn.
- Since I structured an educational program that included English-language classes to lay the groundwork for my community engagement, it is paramount to create an environment where participants feel accepted unconditionally. The message ought to be: “You are valuable, just as you are.”
- Give regular and clear feedback. If course participants ask questions, and especially if they are encouraged to do so, they should always get specific, helpful answers which help establish expertise and reliability. I used exit slips to collect answers after each class and keep a record of them to make sure I replied.
- Understand the needs of your community and create an experience (in my case classes) that address them specifically. Immigrants need and thrive on practical knowledge. Equipping them with it will give them a sense of agency.
- Bear in mind, however, that providing participants with an uplifting experience that dims self-doubt and encourages self-development is a great deal of work. Make sure you build what you value.
- Still, you can’t rush readiness. For newcomers who, even under the best of circumstances, have to make their way in a new language and culture, their plates may be full. Growing into their new lives takes time and a mental, psychological metamorphosis.
- In the end, one of the greatest assets in building trust is patience. I like being available, open, reliable and transparent about the work I do with my community and giving newcomers the time to adapt to a new cultural environment at the pace they can afford.
What The JobUp Did For Me
It wasn’t until I started to take stock of the year-long process that led to the practicum that I realized the grounding value of The JobUp, which I delivered in a spirit of welcoming and inclusion towards my fellow immigrants.
It was then that I recalled the words of Paola, one of TheJobUp’s participants who gave me feedback that I needed for my practicum proposal.
“I want you to know that when I first came to the class, I feel like a big hug from you and your colleague,” she said.
She felt embraced. That’s what came back to my mind: a powerful experience of welcoming.
As immigrants, we lose the grounding force of our native languages, cultures and the social networks into which we are born. Regaining that social traction becomes the journey of a lifetime in our new land.
What I didn’t realize was that, at a primal level, The JobUp grounded newcomers. In other words, the way I produced and taught it helped people reconnect with a sense of belonging they quite literally need to recalibrate their new lives and pick up speed.
As an engagement journalist, that’s what I need to keep doing — and what I discovered that I’m really good at.
