PNI Month Notes — August 2021 — Shazia
Swansea has long since been a multi-cultural city, bustling with many ethnic communities that span the world. And as a City of Sanctuary, it has welcomed people from across South America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East to form new communities here in our small city. Organisations like The Ethnic Minority Youth and Support Team (EYST Wales) have helped situate those people and help them feel part of the existing multi-ethnic population of South Wales. These communities have stories to tell, stories of which often go overlooked in mainstream media. This is why EYST launched the We Are Wales project, to highlight the remarkable effort that BAME people made to their communities over the course of the pandemic. The response we have received from our communities and colleagues is one of relief. When people are marginalised by the news media, reduced to distorted representations and hyperbolic headlines, receiving coverage that authentically tells our stories in our way that respects us, empowers our communities and validates our voices and experiences.
For many people from ethnic backgrounds, the news has been a problem, a source of danger that has led to verbal and physical attacks. Young people at EYST’s youth drop-in would gather to tell politicians about the fallout from Brexit, and how scandalised news stories would directly impact the type of racism they began facing, waiting for something to be done. Years on I can say, not much has changed. Now our networks tell us about recent stories and headlines that have destructive effects on our communities — physically and mentally, saying things like: “There is outright ignorance”. They talk about how objectivity feels like a joke, how intersectionality is lacking, how we are faced with deliberate triggers that don’t instil the strengthening of community but work to drive communities further from the media. And when I began asking them where this project should begin, they responded: “with ourselves” and “it’s time to go past the gatekeepers” because we have everything we need right here.
Under the People’s Newsroom, EYST will work on Telling Our Own Stories, to put the power back in the hands of the people who have long been underserved. A project like this is instrumental, in building community power. A newsroom built for and by people from ethnic minorities allows audiences to regain trust in journalism, a hope that their stories will finally be told with sincerity and authenticity, and that their needs and values will be reflected. What might that look like for EYST? We’ll tell stories about our diverse and rich backgrounds, we’ll explore relationships between young people of colour in Wales and how interconnected they are to the global communities they’re part of, we’ll share our experiences with healthcare, education, and how we celebrate our vibrant cultures through a pandemic.
A space for ethnic minority groups to communicate their experiences and connect with each other is needed in Swansea, but what’s more is that these communities deserve a platform to share those stories.
These monthly notes are reflections on what The People’s Newsroom team are learning as we build the project. You can read previous notes, and more from Shirish and Megan here.
You can read find out more about The People’s Newsroom Initiative here, and if you’d like to be kept up to date with how the project is developing and how you can get involved, then do sign up to our monthly newsletter.
