Here at the Voice of America, the main thing I do is create posts for the social media platforms. The main platforms that I publish more of my creations on would be Facebook, X (formally known as Twitter), and Instagram. It has been great to be able to contribute to the service in this way, especially when it invokes the spirit of journalism that I constantly desire to enhance. Looking for stories in this way and making posts about them and current events have significantly made me more of a journalist than I ever thought I’d be. Moreover, when the opportunity presents itself, I also get the privilege to contribute to the radio programs like Health chat and Africa News Tonight. The help I provide for each program are great because every time I can be on the radio is every time I can hear my father tell me he's proud of me. For Africa News Tonight, I occasionally provide sports reports for about three to five minutes. As for health chat, I do interviews with health professionals on the Health Chat topic of the week. Lastly, on some occasions I get to go on field reports and assist the camera crew for live hits on Tv programs like Straight Talk Africa or Africa 54. For example, I had the privilege to go to the Baltimore Bridge (Francis Scott Key Bridge) a day after it collapsed and helped the reporter Jackson Mvunganyi do a live hit a mile away from the scene. That moment for me changed my life because it was then I realized that being a journalist was exactly what I wanted to be.
To help you understand why journalism is the career I chose to pursue, brings me to tell you a bit about myself. As a little kid, I constantly had to travel the world and grow up in different environments by force. My father’s job was the reason why my upbringing consisted of so much moving. He works for the UN and it turns out that my love for humanity came from making friends with kids that had polarizing lifestyles from my own. From kids who lived in a mansion with a huge pool outside and an indoor hockey rink in their basement, all the way to kids who had to sell dozens of peanuts or apples balancing them on their head while walking for miles a day as a source of financial support in the household.
After my childhood ended, I knew I wanted to do something related to learning more about the world. To me, it seemed so unfair and complicated how such beautiful people are so misunderstood. Yet with polarizing financial differences, I never took the time to consider how or why people were put in these kinds of predicaments. As a kid, other kids had a way of making it seem like life was too beautiful to worry about things like money and poverty.
Luckily, to travel in the way I did made the differences noticeable soon after childhood. Thus, began my journey in figuring out how to make a career out of answering my questions on how the world works.
High school was a great start in figuring things out but it all really clicked in college. College made it clear to me that journalism was a great way to be informed, how to search for information, and what ways suit how I would like to disseminate news for people to be informed. I learned my favorite way is in the form of radio and articles specifically, but I am not against any other kind of way to give and receive information. So this provoked me to major in Media Production. The idea was, after college I can independently publish news and produce it on my own and pursue an independent journalism career. As poetic as that sounds, I noticed through being in the English to Africa Service internship that those plans I had were not realistic. Being an intern at the voice of America helped me understand that it's going to take some time getting to that stage of being a journalist. That said, I have learned so much and think being an intern here is one of the best places to start.