Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar, a Ph.D. journalism faculty member at Northwestern University in Qatar, has been awarded a grant by the U.S. Department of State to create a mentorship program for young female content creators.

Rajakumar will be working with Christina Paschyn, both longstanding members of the local community and who have lived in Doha for several years. The professors, who are also filmmakers, will provide training to support the artistic and professional development of young female civic-minded content creators who are residents and citizens of Qatar.

Rajakumar and Christina are joined by Tariq Al Jaidah, founder of the Katara Art Center, who will be the venue partner for the program.  “Youth have the power to help shape society,” remarked Al Jaidah. “When you invest in them early, they will give back to the society and will in turn, also invest as adults.” He is a longtime supporter of community-based work as the project sponsor for many of the books in the Qatar Narratives series, an anthology collection that is celebrating its 10th anniversary of publication this year.

The program will recruit 15 applicants for a mentorship program. “Young women in the Middle East are at a confluence of global and local changes,” Rajakumar said. “And we hope this program helps them articulate the issues at the forefront of their conversations to a wider audience.” 

The program will involve weekly seminar-style class meetings that cover screenplay writing, different approaches to presenting engaging topics, drafting their own screenplays as well as producing, directing, and editing their own microfilms. 

The participants will explore topics relevant to young people such as hate speech, cyberbullying, and violence.  At the end of the first part of the program, each participant will use her new writing skills and content knowledge to create a ten-page screenplay.

Participants will use their original screenplays to create their own short films, of up to 10 minutes.  The second part of the project capitalizes on the innovative use of mobile phone technology to bring short films straight to audiences.

Interested applicants can send queries via email: shortsbyshorties2022@gmail.com or via Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shortsbyshorties/.

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