Westchester Community College hosts Pulitzer Center Reporters - Meet the Pros

  Allison Shelley and Melissa Turley visited Westchester Community College on April 25^th as part of a “Meet the Pros” event in part of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.  Both of the speakers focused their reporting on women and children issues in foreign countries. 

Melissa Turley South Africa, 2012

Melissa Turley is a student at George Washington University.  She was chosen as the student fellow for the Pulitzer Center program and focused on women’s rights in South Africa.  During her time there, Melissa traveled to remote areas of Southern Africa where the electricity was rare, some towns would steal electricity from poles that would often cause damaging fires.  As Melissa began her research and investigating and the women began to speak openly, she learned that they felt extremely unsafe and acts of rape and murder were common against lesbians.  The culture in South Africa is generally male dominated, the women are expected to be obedient to their husbands and any woman that was lesbian could be “cured” my rape.  Crimes of rape almost always go unreported and no justice is sought for the countless victims.  AIDS and HIV statistics are the highest in South Africa, and a lot of those numbers are a result from these unspeakable rapes taking place daily in a lot of these communities.  Melissa did a fantastic job in her reporting on this under-reported topic as well as providing suggesting as to what specifically can be done to help the women in this area of the world who are not equal and who are fighting daily for basic rights and safety. 

Allison Shelley, Nepal 2012

Allison Shelley was the second speaker in this event, she is an independent photographer or photojournalist, who travels around the world with other journalists, to similarly, discover and report on under-reported issues around the world.  After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Allison stayed in that country for a year and a half to cover Haiti and its culture. She has also traveled to Northern India and areas of Nepal where she discovered several issues.  Eight to twelve year old girls are being forced to get married in Northern India, a lot of them are also becoming pregnant due to rapes and as a result of becoming pregnant, these girls are exiled from their families forced to provide for a child all by themselves.  An interesting topic Shelley shared was on a practice called “Chaupadi” in western Nepal where women are basically sent to live in a shed, often amongst animals, while they are menstruating.

Westchester Community College is the first Community College to participate in the Pulitzer Center fellowship program and Devon Williams is the first student from our Community College to be given the grant.  She will be traveling to Ireland this summer and cover the civil war that has been taking place and the effects its had on the youth culture.

Meet the Pros Event (Women in Crisis)

   

  In the world today there are many issues that are affecting our society. Most notably violence against women which i feel is a very important issue. Prior to Meet the pros event i knew little about this issue but with the enligtenment of Allison Shelley and Melissa Turley i feel like becoming an advocate against violence on women. The story on how women in Nepal go through genital mutilation and also are outcast after their periods was really heart-wrenching. The meet the pros event took place on April 25th 2013 and a mass audience of students and faculty alike attended and also voiced there opinions. Many of my peers are actively viewing different pathways to try and help the issues going on across the globe. I also would like to try and raise a fundraiser this summer to try and eliminate the violent acts, and also educate women on health and give them the resources to succeed.

MEET THE PROS: "We can all do much more"

On April 25, 2013 Allison Shelley and Melissa Turley came to Westchester Community College to talk about their engagement in the 'Women & Children in Crisis' issues. Specifically they spoke about the countries they visited in Eastern India and South Africa. These brave women stepped out of their comfort zone in a way many Americans wouldn't be able to. They felt so strongly about the livelihood of women and children that they sacrificed their basic way of living to visit these countries and get to the bottom of these deep rooted issues. They talked about things like the struggle for women to practice homosexuality and the struggle women in India go through when they are on their menstrual cycles. I say "struggles" only because I cannot find a more harsh word for it. The life of a woman in South Africa is threatened if she is a lesbian; women live in fear for the well-being, they are afraid to walk the streets, afraid to get water because they feel they might get raped. Why would they get raped? Well, because men think it is best for a woman to be raped if she is a lesbian so that she may know how things are "supposed to be." In India, woman are isolated in little animal huts or boxes because they are on their menstrual cycle and men think that they are unclean. They believe this is the way life should be. We as Americans need to understand these deep rooted issues and take control! We have it easy compared to the women in these countries and should never take for granted the kind of life we are able to live. As Don Gregory said, "We can all do much more."

Meet the Pros 4/25/13

The meet the pro's event on 4/25 was not a simple meet n' greet, but an informative look into two professional's work, and a preview of one pulitzer upstart's upcoming story. The main focus is on Melissa Turley and Allison Shelley, and the women issues they focused on in the world. Shelley, a veteran in the field, went to India to report on the issue of Chaupadi, the quarantine of women on their period, and the horrors of the adversity they face. Through vivid images, and first hand interviews, she paints a horrific picture of old world cruelty. 

Melissa Turley however, the last year winner from the pulitzer center, took her reporting skills to South Africa. She told the story of the true suffering in South Africa, and how a new piece of legislation threatens to combine traditional law with national law, which, considering traditional law considers women as objects, would be detrimental to female rights. She shows a portrait of South Africa that is not usually bragged about when talking on the subject of the numerous possibilities in the up and coming future.

The last speaker, Devon Smith, is this years winner from WCC who will be reporting on the schism in Ireland created by two major religions that are splitting the populous. She will b looking into the matter of why random acts of violence are as extreme as they are, and why in this guerilla war, the citizens are being targeted. This day was not an advice panel for up and coming reporters, but rather a real life demonstration of what these reporters go through to popularize some of the most dangerous stories, and how much of them goes into the piece, to give it a life of it's own.

WCC Meet The Pros Event

       Beyond the Journey: 

International Crisis Reporting

Melissa Turley

  The Pulitzer Center is an organization that gives journalists the opportunity to travel to different parts of the world and report on crisis' that otherwise would go underreported.

    On Thursday April 25, 2013 at the Westchester Community College Meet The Pros event, students and myself were able to meet two young journalists, Melissa Turley and Allison Shelley as they told their stories about their journey's to South Africa and Nepal to report on the underreported crisis' happening in those places. The event also gave the audience an opportunity to hear from this years Pulitzer Center winner, Devon Smith about her upcoming journey to report in Northern Ireland.  

    The first speaker to tell her story was Melissa Turley. Melissa Turley traveled to South Africa to report on gender equality. In South Africa, men are superior to women. Turley discussed how South Africa has won the battle to stop apartheid, but the battle is still being fought to provide women with equal rights. Homosexual women specifically are looked down upon as unequal in South Africa.
      Turley spoke extensively about lesbians in South Africa and the hardships and isolation they face because of their sexuality.
        Gay women are seen as unequal and abnormal in South Africa. Lesbians are treated so poorly that there have actually been gay women murdered in South Africa because of their sexuality. Turley also spoke about the truth that some lesbians are raped by other men. The men feel that if they have sex with a lesbian, the women will become straight, police share the same sentiment. Turley says that lesbians feel isolated because when they are violated, they don't have anywhere to turn. Police either laugh at them or refuse to help.
   Turley also discussed the Rural Women's Movement. The South Africa constitution says that women and men are supposed to be equal. However, customary law gives men superiority over women. The Rural Women's Movement hopes to accomplish awareness, specifically their goal is to make rural women aware of their constitutional rights.

   Melissa Turley's presentation also included a video that discussed the horrible living conditions that families experience when living in townships in Langa. The townships were brought about because of the 1923 Urban Areas Act. This act forced African Americans to move to these townships and endure terrible living conditions. Terrible living conditions like crowdedness, over packed homes, and some homes are even without water, heat, and toilets.

      Melissa Turley also tackled the issue of prostitution. Prostitution in South Africa is illegal. However, people are attempting to make prostitution legal, they feel if it is legalized women could be safer, as it pertains to contracting the HIV virus. The HIV virus has become an epidemic in South Africa. The epidemic has turned South Africa into the highest rated HIV country in the world.

Allison Shelley

  To learn about a possible solution to the HIV epidemic in South Africa, click here
  
   Allison Shelley was the next speaker to tell her story at the meet the pros event. Shelley traveled to Nepal to report on the story about young girls and the Hindu practice called chaupadi. Shelley spoke extensively about chaupadi. Chaupadi is a practice where young girls and women must live in uncomfortable animal sheds when they are menstruating. Women also must stay in these animals sheds after they give birth. Sometimes women have to share these sheds with multiple people. Shelley says that when women are menstruating they are seen as dirty and untouchable. Therefore they must stay in the animal hut because they are forbidden from entering their home and cannot touch food or water that is being shared with others. They also cannot attend school.
   




  Chaupadi can have significant risks as well. Those practicing chaupadi have reported being raped, some women have died from snakebites, hypothermia, and severe bleeding. When the weather is cold, living in animal sheds is very difficult, one woman actually died from trying to light a fire for warmth. Most people see this practice as a way of life. However, Shelley told a story about a father in Nepal who did not want his girls to live in animal sheds. Instead, the father kept the girls in his home while they were menstruating. A problem ended up occurring however. The girls got paralysis. The father was told by a doctor he had to let his girls live in the animal huts. The girls father realized at that point he had no other alternative but to have his girls practice chaupadi. Once the girls began practicing chaupadi, miraculously the girls recovered from the paralysis.


 

 



Shelley also spoke about maternal care in Nepal. Nepal has made progress in their maternal mortality rate. By the year 2015, Nepal is expected to go down two-thirds in their maternal mortality rate.
   Shelley also touched on what is forced upon young girls in Nepal. Young girls in Nepal live a hard life. They must get married and then get pregnant at a very young age. In fact, Allison followed one 16 year old through her pregnancy.
       The event ended with a young girl named Devon Smith, this years Pulitzer Center winner. Smith discussed where she will be reporting and what she will be reporting on. She will be traveling to Northern Ireland to report on segregation. Specifically, segregation as it pertains to religion. The student told the audience the news that there are people in Northern Ireland who have never met someone of a different faith. The winner will also report on the violence that occurs in Northern Ireland.
      I enjoyed the meet the pros event very much. I left learning many things, and not only was it an enjoyable experience, but it was a rewarding experience as well.
        To learn more about the Pulitzer Center, and to read Melissa Turley and Allison Shelley's stories visit, http://pulitzercenter.org/

Meet the Pro's, A Westchester Community College Success

        The Pulitzer Center recently promoted the Meet the Pro's Event at Westchester Community College's Classroom Building on March 25, 2013 where students were able to listen to presentations by working journalists in the field who were able to go all over the world and interview many different kinds of people. The general theme was women's rights in both South Africa and Nepal where various cultural practices have scarily real consequences for women across the region.
         One of the speakers, Allison Shelly, went to Nepal where she documented the practice of Chaupati, which is the practice in that particular region of during a woman's menstrual cycle, the woman is forced to live outside the home, in makeshift shelters and animal huts. These structures are tiny living quarters by our terms. This is forced upon the woman because local belief/culture is that a woman is unclean during her cycle and needs to be separated from the rest of society. This belief is so strong that when a woman is going through her period, even her closest friends may shun her, forcing the woman to even take separate back trails through their village. Women are often killed by animals, among other things, while living in these shelters. Allison did a great job of capturing the terrible circumstances these women face while living in these shelters for sometimes weeks. Allison has also done work in Haiti during and after the earthquake disaster.
          Another of the speakers was Melissa Turley who had gone to South Africa to document the many, many terrible rapes that occur there every day. The cultural practice in many post-apartheid regions of South Africa is that homosexuality, especially in women, is not looked at as something natural. Because of the deep track this falsity holds in the local culture, many men feel they are doing almost their duty by raping these women because they believe that by doing so they will "fix" the woman into being straight. The culture doesn't recognize the psychological process that backs up the idea that sexuality, be it homo or hetero, is a natural process. Melissa really got involved in the community and went all over to try and really understand the plight these women face. This belief is so deeply engrained that even the women speak about these rapes in a very matter of fact way. Not all are fine with the status quo and women advocacy groups have begun to spring up across the country.
          Both women did an amazing job, and definitely acomplished what they set out to do. They also gave some good insight into how the students would be able to follow in their footsteps and possible help others around the globe. After the presentation, Prof. Luther gave his opinion as well as to how the students attending could go out into the world and further foward the field of journalism and accomplish great things themselves. Overall, the Meet the Pro's event was a great way for students and teachers alike to admire the hard work of some impressive young, and up and coming journalists.

Meet The Pros

On April 23, 2013 The Pulitzer Center held their Meet The Pros conference at Westchester Community College. The Pulitzer Center helps send reporters to places that need reporting. There're are many places around places around the world that need to be reported in order for the problems to be helped. Thats when the Pulitzer Center comes in and helps. They help people know the crisis that is going on in that area.        

                                                    

Allison Shelley is a journalist who traveled to Nepal to report on the crisis of chaupadi. Chaupadi's are huts where women that are on their period must stay. Their families throw them in these little huts until they are no longer on it. A women is considered dirty when she is on her period. These chaupadi huts are usually the same place where the animals stay. A lot of them are just holes in the ground. The picture to the right shows a 14 year old girl staying in her chaupadi house. A lot of these girls were raped and even killed while staying in these chaupadis.

Melissa Turley attended George Washington University when she won the Pulitzer Center Prize. She was given a chance to travel to a place where she though was under reported. She chose to go to South Africa and report on the gender gap. Women in South Africa face the problems of not being equal to men. Lesbian women are always being targets of hate crimes. These women fear for their lives if anyone realizes that she      is a lesbian. One lady was raped three times by a group of men. She reported the incident to the police every time, but the fact that she a lesbian nothing was ever done. These women start losing hope when no one listens. There is now a LGBTI community that holds meeting to help lesbian women deal with these problems. 

Devon Smith is the first student at Westchester Community College to win the Pulitzer Center Prize. She will get the chance as Melissa Turley did to travel to a place that needs to be reported on. She has chosen to travel to Ireland to report on two religions, Catholics and Protestants. She will report on how these two religions are faced with problems. Good luck Devon! 

A Glance at the Pros

        On April 25th, 2013, Westchester Community College held its annual Meet The Pros event.  This years event with the Pros was International Reporting: Women & Children in Crisis, and featured both a professional journalist and a student journalist sponsored by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

        This year's event featured Melissa Turley, a student journalist reporting from South Africa, and Allison Shelley, a photo-journalist reporting from around the world, with a heavy focus on Nepal for this event.  Also present was Devon Smith, Westchester Community College's first sponsored International Reporting Fellow Student, to speak about her upcoming trip to Northern Ireland.

                                                        Melissa Turley was the 2012 Pulitzer Center Campus Consortium International Reporting Fellow Student from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.  Choosing to travel to South Africa alone, she learned much from the female community and how they are repressed and stigmatized in many ways.  Women of color are still treated as second-class citizens in many parts of South Africa, and if they are a part of the LGBT community, it stigmatizes them further, opening them up to many accounts of domestic violence that the government turns a blind eye to, such as raping a lesbian to make her 'straight'.  Rural village women have to fight for basic rights, and while they rarely make legislative headway, they never give up the fight, which is to be admired from Melissa's perspective.

        Allison Shelley, a documentary photo-journalist, traveled among Haiti, India and Nepal since 2010.  Within that timeframe she learned a great deal about how women abroad are treated within their culture, especially when it comes to sensitive issues such as teen pregnancy, or in Nepal's case, having a period.  Nepal's tradition of Chaupadi, where women having a period are pushed into isolation, was Allison's main focal point at the event.   The pictures and stories she found of Chaupadi across Nepal showcase a wide array of situations, some being where the girls were put into the same sheds outside the house as the animals, and others where the family had a special room set aside for them.

    It was a time of isolation from others and the house, and this tradition is ingrained in Nepalese culture, with the more rural areas practicing a much stricter form.  Though she did find that some families did not want to send their loved ones out of the house into isolation during their period, they felt bound by tradition to do it.  Yet while some families could afford decent housing for the girls during Chaupadi, most of the time they have to stay with animals in a simple shed, leading to many problems in the cold Himalayans.

        Near the end of the event, Devon Smith was called up to give a brief summary of her upcoming trip to Northern Ireland.  She spoke briefly, but she chose Northern Ireland because she felt the conflict between Ireland, controlled by the Irish, and Northern Ireland, controlled by the British, was still an under reported crisis, even if they publicly made amends.  There is still much segregation among the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, which causes a large divide, and she is going to report on the subject this year.  She is the first student to be sponsored from Westchester Community College.

        The Pulitzer Center is known for its bold initiative in sponsoring student journalists to venture out and report on a crisis that may be under the national scope, and this year is proud to include Westchester Community College among the national college and universities where student journalists are sponsored from.  WCC is the first community college nationally to be sponsored by the Pulitzer Center.


        For more information on the works of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, these stories and more, visit http://pulitzercenter.org/.

Meet the Pros Event gives students a deeper view of overseas reporting

   On April 23rd students of Westchester Community College were givin a chance to to get a glimpse of the world of overseas reporting. Melissa Turley and Allison Shelley visited WCC to bith talk about thier experiences overseas and to help give students an idea of what it takes to become a reporter.

  Melissa Turley a graduate of George Washington University talked about her time in South Africa where she reported on the struggles of women there to gain equal rights. "I  was surprised." Meliisa said. "These women are telling me these horrible stories like there normal everyday things and It's like this is a completly different world then where I'm from." In South Africa woman are unable to get abortions are very oftem victims of abuse or rape and and are attacked for being homosexual. Melissa spent a lot of time with the Rural Womans Movement in South Africa who are working to correct some of these injustices.


   The other speaker at the event was Allison Shelley who had went to Nepal to report on mistreatment of women there. In Nepal a women must live outside of thier home in a small mud hut during menstration because during that time they are seen as "unclean". Allison also talked about hat it took to become a successful reporter. "Get your stories read." and "Find someone to mentor you." seemed to be her two biggest points.

    Students overall seemed to be very impressed by the event and the two guest speakers. "It takes a lot of courage and self-control to go over there and just report on the facts and not get involved. I give them a lot of credit for that." said Liz Malloy a student at WCC. The WCC faculty seemed to be impressed aswell as said by Don Gregory pointed out about the event "It made feel like we could all be doing so much more."

Meet the Pros Event

Recently, our class was given the opportunity 

to here from speakers Allison Shelly 

and Melissa Turley regarding their 

experiences in South Africa and Haiti.
http://pulitzercenter.org/

The Pulitzer Center is a very well known organization who report on worldwide crisis, specifically crises that are often ignored. On April 26th, 2013 Westchester Community College students were given the opportunity to hear the inspirational stories from speakers Melissa Turley and Allison Shelley.

Melissa Turley adventured to South Africa as a Pulitzer Consort International reporting student from George Washington University. Before South Africa Melissa also interned at the Department of State where she would then focus on projects concerning the expansion of women's rights along with gender equality. Allison Shelley, the other speaker was a documentary photographer and multimedia creator for  The Washington Times. Some of her photos have been featured in TIMES magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post and many others. Currently Allison is now a freelancer focusing mainly on health issues regarding young women.

With Shelley's photography and multimedia backgrund she took on a project called, "Out of the Sheds: Women Fight Segregation in Rural Nepal." This focued on Nepalese custom which isolates during menstration. Turley traveled to South Africa for her project, "Closing the Gender Gap in South Africa." Her main objective was to report on violence against South African women.

Shelley and Turley discussed their projects and work along with a Q & A session for students following their presentation. Students were also given the chance for a behind the scenes look into the life of a journalist overseas.

Meet The Pros Event

On Thursday April 25, Westchester Community College held its annual “ Meet the Pros” event at their main campus. This event allowed two journalists Allison Shelley and Melissa Turley to speak upon their experience. Both journalists traveled around the world to learn about crisis that many of us are not aware, also to educate the United States on those crises. Allison Shelley and Melissa Turley are two Pulitzer Center journalists.

           

Melissa Turley

Melissa Turley reported from South Africa as the 2012 Pulitzer Center Campus Consortium International Reporting Student Fellow from The George Washington University in Washington, DC. Melissa traveled to South Africa and reported on women right. These rights included violence, LGBT, and women being abused. Men rape women that are homosexuals and believe they can turn them “straight”. Law enforcement is not as helpful as they should be to these women. On the other hand, that still does not stop certain women to keep fighting for their rights.

Allison Shelley

Allison Shelley is a documentary photographer and multimedia creator. Allison was a former staff photographer for the Washington Times. Allison traveled to Haiti in 2010 and Nepal. However, Shelley focused her presentation more on Nepal. She reported on the abuse of young girls in Nepal. In India girls are forced to be married as young as 12 years old, and forced to have children. When the girls are menstruating cycling they are forced to sleep in this hut where animals are kept.

Devon Smith

Devon Smith was the first Westchester Community College student to win a Pulitzer Center grant. Devon will be traveling to Ireland to cover a story on the conflict between the two different religion Catholics and Protestant. Devon explained how serious religion is taken in Ireland. She will report on the violence and why segregation is so controversial in Ireland.  

At the end of the presentation all three of the young ladies sat down to answer question that the audience asked. They also had a meet and greet where students interview all three ladies Allison, Melissa and Devon. During the meet and greet it allowed students to ask question as well as faculty. All three ladies did a remarkable job when delivering their story. During the presentation all ladies had the audience full attention. All three stories were touching and open many hearts.

For more information visit:

http://pulitzercenter.org/

Meet the Pros: Uncovering the Story

          On April 25th, 2013, Westchester Community College held its 15th annual "Meet the Pros" event where two esteemed reporters from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting offered the privilege to interview, question and learn about their "first-hand experience" on the gender gap in South Africa, Chaupadi and Nepali. Seeing the gap through the photography of Allison Shelley, and hearing of the crime and isolation against women from Melissa Turley paints a vivid image of the injustices that people face on a daily basis in the areas they have visited.

          Melissa Turley, a Fellowship Reporter from The George Washington University, is an accomplished part of her school community, as well as a proud part of many other teams and projects. As an editor of The GW Hatchet, a student-run campus newspaper, as well as a director for her documentary "Microbreweries, Maximum Sustainability," taking on a journey to report the gender gap in South Africa seemed to be a great idea for someone ready to make a difference and bring things to the public's attention.
"If a woman brings a case to court she cannot set foot in the courthouse. A man must represent her."
The opening line in her article is a statement that explains what women go through to live in South Africa. Not only did she make life-long relationships with these people, she learned things that would shock Americans to even fathom an idea, but to Africa, is a normal everyday thing to everyone. Women are being mistreated but not just discrimination, but crimes such as rape and murder are common occurrences done JUST BECAUSE the women are "different."
          Melissa also met organizations working for the greater good of women, such as the Rural Women's Movement (RWM). These people are all working to help equalize women and stop the injustices, and even though before this she might not have known about the injustices, many people can thank her for putting the word out there about the inequality going on in South Africa.

          Allison Shelley is a Fellowship Reporter and photographer, who brings her stories to life by helping people experience the story not just with their ears, but their eyes and heart. As a former photographer for the Washington Times, she decided to take her experience to Haiti, and the sovereign state of Nepal, where women are not only being mistreated, but being seen as "dirty" and "unclean" because of something that they cannot help. Women are forced to stay in exile during their menstrual cycle, which is called "chaupadi." Such a thing is inexcusable in America but in Nepal is widely accepted. In certain cases, it was seen as necessary. In one of the cases she talked about, a man decided to let his daughter in the house and she was struck with paralysis, but as soon as he sent her back into exile, she recovered fully.
          While there may, or may not be a force watching over the people, making sure ritual behavior is followed, their definitely is a force that is noticing this. That force was Allison. She endured the non-safe conditions of Haiti and Nepal, and traveled for many hours per day to keep up with these families, and learn these customs. Through her pictures, she showed and almost had people feeling the experience, and one could not imagine a dry eye or cement heart when listening to the issues of these neglected, and exiled women.

          Both of these reporters opened the eyes and hearts of Americans, and through the Pulitzer Center, hopefully made a difference to these people. To follow along and learn more about what they've seen, please visit the links below courtesy of the Pulitzer Center:

http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/south-africa-gender-inequality-womens-rights-poverty-justice-democracy

http://pulitzercenter.org/projects/nepal-cultural-practice-women-childbirth-maternal-mortality-chaupadi

Pulitzer Center For Crisis Reporting Visits Westchester Community College

On April 23rd, students of Westchester Community College were given the privilege of attending a seminar with two journalists from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting.  The Pulitzer Center mainly focuses on reporting stories that go widely unnoticed by most public news sources, as well as giving grants to students who wish to bring developing stories into the eye of the public.  Melissa Turley, a graduate of George Washington University, was one of these students.  Through a grant awarded by the Pulitzer Center, Turley was able to travel to South Africa in order to report on the issues of women and their fight to empower sex workers and victims of abuse, despite facing a judicial system that does not always favor them.

This is the second of what will hopefully be many more presentations made by the Pulitzer Center at Westchester Community College, the first community college to be a part of the Campus Consortium program.

Meet the Pros Event at Westchester Community College

          

Meet the Pro's Event at Westchester Community College



 

 

     

            The Pulitzer Center, an organization who reports on crisis throughout the world, visited Westchester Community College on April 26^th 2013. The Pulitzer Center organized an event, Meet the Pros, where two journalists shared their stories and discoveries of being a journalist.

            Allison Shelley, the first speaker talked about how started working at the Washington Post, but then eventually followed her real passion of becoming a freelance journalist. When Shelley became a freelance journalist, she started traveling the world to find undiscovered stories that she could tell. Shelley, as a photo journalist, began to follow the way women were treated in other countries. She visited Haiti and India, and Shelley discovered that these two different regions with different languages and cultures shared one similarity, the lack of women’s rights. She followed a couple of women in Haiti that went thru difficult, and almost, deadly pregnancies. And she took note that, in Haiti there aren’t many medical advancements, because it’s a third world country, so why would there be equality for women? When Shelley was in India she discovered something different, she took notice to the way women were mistreated for having a menstrual cycle. Shelley said the girls were forced to sleep in pens with the animals, because in the Hindu culture they consider a female on her menstrual cycle as “worthless”. During the Q&A session Shelley said “Journalists report on stories to tell. They don’t have a solution for what they see, that a part of the job”

            On the flip side, Melissa Turley, the second journalist to speak, spoke about her discoveries in South Africa. Turley said “she wanted to find the true narrative to South Africa.” Turley received a grant to report on her topic, for weeks Turley researched South Africa, and the only way she could tell this story was by experiencing its atmosphere. What Turley found, like Shelley, was that women didn’t have rights. Turley said she spoke to women who said there was rape, sexually transmitted diseases and no laws to protect women. During Turley’s trip she found the true narrative to South Africa, it wasn’t as prosperous and changed as the media portrayed it to be. She revealed the truth and current position of women’s rights in South Africa.

            After the event, there was a Q&A session with the journalists, where students could interact with them and ask questions. The Meet the Pros event, all in all, motivated communication students to be passionate about storytelling, and that one day they could possibly uncover a story of their own.

-Caroline Lukaswitz, for Westchester Community College



Shedding Light on Crisis Around the World

On Thursday April, 25 Westchester Community College held its annual meet the pros event. Westchester Community College has held this event for 25 years. Along with WCC this year meet the pros was a collaboration with the Pulitzer center on crisis reporting. This event allows journalist to come to campus share some of their work and give their personal insight on their jobs to students. This year this event hosted Allison Shelley and Melissa Turley. Shelley is a documentary photographer and multimedia creator. Turley was the 2012 winner of a pulitzer center grant which gave her the opportunity to go abroad and report on the story of her choice. The pulitzer center on crisis reporting focuses on bringing to light stories that are underreported from around the world. Allison Shelley shared her experiences in Haiti and in Nepal. Her main focus on her presentation was Nepal. Allison along with Allyn Gaestel visited Nepal to investigate chaupadi. This is a practice that forces women to be isolated from their families during their menstruation. A lot of women must sleep outside sometimes unsheltered from nature. This practice has been the cause of many tragedies. Melissa Turley traveled to africa to find her story. Melissa was faced with many womens rights issues in Africa. Including violence against women and the law of the land. Women in the LGBTI community are faced with high rape numbers because some men believe they can rape them straight. The police is not very helpful with this matter. Other women still fight for their rights. Some women in certain communities need men in order to take a case to court and to own property. These laws held by tradition along with traditional leaders who make sure they are followed. The big issue now is these traditional leaders now want these customs written into law. If this were to happen it would be devastating for the women fighting for the right to be their own person. The last person to speak at the meet the pros event was Devon Smith who was WCC first winner of a Pulitzer center grant. She will be traveling to Ireland to investigate on the conflict between Catholics and Protestant people still going on today. After the presentation students were able to ask the pros some questions. The meet the pros event definitely did its job shedding light on stories most people don't know about. This is a wonderful event for students, future journalist or not. I look forward to using the pulitzer center to learn more about crisis around the world.

 For more information on Turleys and Shelleys stories please visit: http://pulitzercenter.org/

Ignoring Teen Pregnancy, Discriminating against Gays and Lesbians

The first speaker in my video was Allison Shelley. She works as an independent documentary photographer and her story truly inspired me. I was shocked when she told me that a sixteen-year-old pregnant girl was in the hospital and they wouldn’t give her any medical attention. She was lying on a table screaming in pain. Once I saw a picture of her, I immediately felt bad for this girl. The saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words” fits this situation. Right away I had tons of thoughts and questions in my head. I wanted to know why nobody would help the poor girl and why this was considered normal in this society. Allison told me another one of her stories and I couldn’t believe how a lady had her baby killed by a snake. Three years later another one of her babies was stolen when she went to the bathroom in middle of the night. They slept outside so it was very easy for people to do these kinds of things considering there was no security. It is honestly a mother’s worst nightmare to loose her child. I can’t even imagine the pain she went through.

The second speaker in my video was Melissa Turley. She is a former student who traveled to South Africa to report on women’s issues.  She told me that women in South Africa feel like Democracy doesn’t exist. I truly found it interesting because I couldn’t imagine being in their situation and having the same feelings as them. Also I found it rude how lesbians and gays would walk down the street and be discriminated. I understand that this isn’t in the United States, but in my opinion I feel like every person in the world should have their own rights and be able to do what they want without anyone discriminating towards them.  Melissa also told me that whenever a crime like this occurred; the police force didn’t do anything about it because they didn’t care. I think that ignoring this problem is terrible and what is the point in having police if they don’t even help you out.

Meet the Pros at WCC

        On April 25th, Westchester Community College hosted its 15th annual Meet the Pros event. We met past Pulitzer Fellowship winner Melissa Turley, and Pulitzer Reporter Allison Shelley. They both showed us their past experiences working in third world countries and what they tried to do to help get the message out about the problems in these countries.

        Allison Shelley is a Pulitzer Crisis Reporter and she had gone to multiple countries, such as India and Nepal to report on the women's and children's right in the countries.

     Melissa Turley is a WCC student and she had won the Pulitzer Fellowship last year and went on a trip to South Africa to report on the crisis on women's rights and freedom of sexuality rights.

The video above was a short compilation of certain portions of the event and some interview clips after the event.

Meet The Pros At WCC

Meet The Pros At WCC                                   

Despite the fact that there are over a million systematic crises going on throughout the world, many of them are extremely under reported. On Thursday, April 25, Westchester Community College hosted a “Meet the Pros” event on their campus. This event looked deeply into two journalists who traveled the world in order to educate the United States on just a few of these under reported issues. The two journalists that were hosting the event were Pulitzer Center grantee, Allison Shelley, and the 2012 student fellow from George Washington University, Melissa Turley. Both young women dove into discussing their work with graphic images and descriptive stories.

Allison Shelley

Allison Shelley is a documentary photographer and multimedia creator. She formally worked for the Washington Times and Education Week newspapers. Now she is a freelancer focusing mostly on maternal health issues that affect young woman in other parts of the world. During the event, she discussed her research done in Haiti starting in early 2010. The audiences’ eyes were glued open as they saw the explicit images she portrayed on the screen. Despite her calm and soft-spoken tone, anyone who entered the room could tell the emotional investment she had on the woman she met during her travels.

Melissa Turley

The other remarkable young woman who embarked on a journey to help inform the people of troubles in other parts of the world was Melissa Turley. Turley was this past years’ winner of the Pulitzer Center Campus Consortium International Reporting Student Fellow from George Washington University. Although she was only a college student, she embarked on a dangerous and mind-blowing journey to South Africa to report on women being neglected and abused in the area. The young lady, approximately the same age as the majority of the student in the audience, gave the impression of being extremely mature. One could simply tell by looking at her demeanor that this woman had been drastically impacted by the events she witnessed during her abroad study.

After the moving event of pictures, video, and stories, told by two remarkable women, was a meet and greet. This was where students and faculty could interview the ladies on any personal questions they didn’t discuss in their presentation. Chaos struck the room as multiple students rushed up to the woman in hopes of attaining an interview to remember. Although the Pulitzer Center journalists were only at WCC campus for a short while, their stories will forever impact the audience who opened their hearts and minds to the issues they discussed. 

Some More Links on Meet the Pros:

http://pulitzercenter.org/campus-consortium/westchester-community-college

http://pulitzercenter.org/event/pulitzer-center-symposium-westchester-community-college

http://vikingnews.net/news/2012/11/10/pulitzer-center-reporters-to-visit-campus-two-day-event-partnership-coordinated-by-professor/

Meet The Pros Conference

 

 The Pulitzer Center sponsors international journalism around the world to help bring awareness to a wide range of crisis presently occurring. Issues that you do not think about on a daily basis. Some of which you may have had no idea about at all. The Pulitzer Center chooses students to accompany other journalist to different countries to cover such topics. We were given an assignment  in our Multimedia Journalism class that was directly related to this organization. It was time for the Pulitzer Center to chose another student. In order to be considered you needed to do some research. We were instructed to go on their website and look at some of their past projects and try and come up with a crisis that I felt needed to be documented and needed attention. A student was once again going to be chosen to actually travel to the country of their choice to cover a pressing issue.
    On April 25 our class was told to attend a conference called Meet The Pros. There we met some of the past winners who were awarded the opportunity to travel to various countries.

      The first speaker's name was Melissa Turley. She traveled to South Africa to report on women's issues. She spoke of awful stories about how the women of South Africa live in such a male dominant society. She attended some of the lesbian and gay rights conferences while there. In South Africa being a lesbian is considered something quite horrible and men feel they have the right to rape these women. Their excuse is that by doing so they are helping them to become straight. Melissa also told of the high murder rates of lesbians living there. She went on to explain how "women did not even feel safe in their own homes". In this country another big problem is prostitution. At this moment it is still an illegal act. There is a large group of women who are fighting to change that. They believe it would be much safer if it was legal. This is because this county has the highest HIV rate in the world in which many women contract this disease from being raped. By legalizing prostitution it will be more controlled and women could seek help if needed.

                 

      The second woman who spoke at this conference was Allison Shelley. She works as in independent documentary photographer. She traveled to Nepal where a abortion is illegal. There pregnancy and childbirth is one of the biggest killers of teenage girls. They do not receive medical treatment while pregnant and many suffer because of this. She showed us a photo of a young women who was in agony, just bleeding on a table not receiving the medical attention she needed.

       Another major problem in this country is that they girls are forced to marry at such a young age...some as young as 10. The way they treat these young girls and women are horrible. It is also practice in this country that girls begin to have their periods they are sent to a hut outside of their home till they are done. These huts are very small and can be quite cold. These huts are called Chhaupadi. They believe that when a girl or woman has their period they're "dirty" and can not be in the house or around food. Allison spoke of how some of these girls would die while in these huts. Some from fires and animal attacks. They are also sometimes raped in these huts.
Devin Smith was the last girl to speak. She is this years winner and will be traveling to Northern Ireland. There she will document how 90% of schools are religiously segregated. This is causing many issues there. In January 2013 a six day riot broke out because the government said they could not hang the Ireland flag. I am sure she will find many more problems while visiting that country.
All in all I felt this conference was very interesting and it brought to my attention things that had never even crossed my mind before. It made me feel that even though we have many problems in this country as well, I would never want to have to deal with some of the issues that are such a huge problem in some other countries.
You can find out more about the Pulitzer center by visiting their website  www.Pulitzercenter.org or by checking out their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/Pulitzercenter