GKK Youth Media Team Training Conducted

The pandemic has forced everyone to shift into the digital world and made things limited and unreachable. Seating capacity inside the church has been reduced to 30% and certain restrictions for churchgoers have also been imposed making the Senior Citizens, Persons with Comorbidities and the underage unable to go to their respective GKKs and Parishes. Hence, they are left with no choice except to join the Online Masses.

In response to this difficult and challenging situation, the Parish Youth Ministry of St. Mary of the Perpetual Rosary Parish organized the Youth Media Team primarily to spearhead the live streaming of parish masses as well as special GKK masses, to assist in the documentation of parish-related activities, postings on Facebook, and video making for announcements and online activities.

The said team conducted their first orientation and training last June 13, 2021 at St. Mary’s Parish Social Hall. Thirteen youth representatives from the different GKKs (San Isidro Labrador-Juliville, SJ-Jade Valley, San Roque-Cabtantian, Our Lady of Fatima-Emily, IC-Deca Homes, SJ-Country Homes, SIL-CDE, San Nicolas) were present. Because of the Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ) in Davao City, the training was limited to only the youth from the GKKs that have Sunday Masses.

The orientation was given by Ms. Jonalen Asares, the Parish Youth Ministry Media Head, who presented the rationale and objectives behind the formation of the media team, as well as its roles and responsibilities. The Media Team will work along with the Social Communication Committee (SoCCom) in writing articles about the parish and GKK activities. The training proper was subsequently led by Bro. Mike Luchana, assisted by Jespert Pabilic and John Abiera. Bro. Mike taught the participants the basics of using the OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) which is the main software used in the live streaming. After the orientation and training proper, Ma’am Hermelita Mapute, Parish Social Communication Coordinator, introduced the history of the SoCCom in the parish and she spoke about how she considers the team to be “a vision that has come into action”: a team of young people serving under media and working along with them in spreading the Good News in the digital world.

Despite the limited time, the representatives considered the training program to be fruitful and informative. In the following Sunday Parish Masses, the participants were teamed up by pairs and scheduled to be exposed to different activities and, eventually, to be the ones to operate by themselves the live streaming. This is only the beginning for the team. More trainings are planned and will be scheduled in the future to further equip the youth media team. (Blanche Sofia Barimbao)