Shuvatara

Those fries and achar. I ate them every Wednesday for six whole years of my life and they were the best I ever had.

I ate it in my lunch break and sometimes in places where I should not be eating them for instance when I was supposed to be listening to Umesh sir in my optional math s class [sorry! But they were so good]

I remember my fist day of school when I joined Shuvatara in grade 4 vividly and till now I remember my bryophytes and my tenses and what not.

Shuvatara was as awesome for me as for my cousins. Neha’s frolicking in Germany while Prakrit just started his BA in KCM, Evana’s graduating soon (hoot!) and Sudeep, Isha and Sushrina are doing their own things.

We are in different continents but Shuvatara never fails to bring us back to where we started. It’s been one heck of a journey.

PR-ing for a change

For this week, Me and MaKayla teamed up for a PR based project. From our individual press releases to combined press kit and research papers, I got to say it was quite a project.

Personally, I felt the project required strategic planning the most before anything else. Recognizing the target audience, finding the medium to connect and tracking and evaluating our efforts where the major parts that we spent a lot time in.

After Joyce Peterson’s visit this week, it was easier to do the project especially because she acknowledged that it was all about the skill to find platforms to spread the resources among the appropriate audience whether one is from the science or which ever background the company is from. Peterson studied English writing and literature but currently write for the Jackson Lab here in the island. Although she was from a language and literature background, she believed that knowing to write is enough to get a person writing for scientific, artistic or any other field writing.

While writing for the Maya Universe academy for my project, I kept in mind what she said. The writing part is sort of familiar once the background research is done. MaKayla and I identified out audience, which was quite diverse from COA community to UWC community to Nepalese citizens.  Then we dived into the writing part.

In terms of communication management, after that medium we chose to communicate and establish relationships were most new media including electronic press releases and social media. We came up with a press kit that way very concise yet efficient in delivering the major objectives and intentions of the organization and its current event. After putting up the press kit together, I felt like the amount of information administered through it covered various new and traditional media needs.

I believe our press releases were generic yet enough however, if we had more time it would have been really awesome to have very specific press releases with respect to the various social media and the audience.

Just telling people is not enough, reminding them, evaluating the popularity and finding other means to promote a product is extremely vital as well. Furthermore, it required the skill of being concise yet effective.  At the end, it helped me understand various mediums of communications and basic PR skills.

We are quite awesome

Kal Bhairab/ Porcia Mannadhar

It was last term’s Art and design class, my very first art class ever, when I not only got to try various mediums that I had never expected to use before but I some how connected most of my assignments to the culture that I grew up in. Whether it was comparing Ellsworth’s Main Street to Kathmandu’s Newroad or doing my final project based on thanka paintings, I just can’t help but think something Nepali.

In my middle school history class we read about the ancient to medieval to modern kingdoms and one question that we always in our exams was to describe the evolution of art and their specialty and I remember, it used to come for a whole 10 points. We all were so meticulous describing every detail and process and now I think of it, it was worth it. I stopped hating my three-hour-long social studies exams this very moment.

I have never thought of any Nepali artistic creation or process so intensely as I have today. Not that I didn’t appreciate it when I was home but I had never thought of it so deeply.

Since inception to hitherto, Nepalese art is a tradition. Specific ethnic groups and the castes within then specialize in particular skill that they pass on from one generation to the other. I’m a Newar, ethnic group native to the Kathmandu valley, which later happened to be the capital. I believe we are pretty rich in artistic skills from wood carving to the stone sculpture to pottery, painting and archietecture. From all the bold mural art on the walls of Thamel, to the amazing thanka painting in the streets of Patan, now I know why foreigners get crazy when it comes to buying souvenirs.

Photo courtesy: flickr/ Porcia Manandhar

Now as Nepal moves towards globalization, this art culture has been slowly diminishing. But here, when I’m a thousand miles away from home, doing anything artsy… from my art assignment to doing henna on my friends, I feel closer.                

I have never thought of any Nepali artistic creation or process so intensely as I have today. Not that I didn’t appreciate it when I was home but I had never thought of it so deeply.

I have never travelled so far from home for such a long period of time. In the last 138 days being here, which I just came to know after registering my federal taxes today, I have not really been homesick. However, I find myself talking about how-we-do things back home almost everywhere.

Yes, this blog post is all over the place but for some reason I just had to write it.

Photo courtesy: Porcia Manandhar

जय  नेपाल।

Jai Nepal.

Lets get employed

Applying for a PR job will require me to do lot of pre-application homework than any other usual job posts. Mostly because it demands me to handle a widespread variety of audience with varying interests and then to maintain and represent the company’s name in the crowd. 

Here’s my checklist as a two-months old journalism student:

Becoming a social media guru

I should be fluent in the new media language. From twitter to Facebook to LinkedIn, I must know how they work and who are my target audience in each different social media. In doing so I would be able to strategically plan my contents to specific audience. 

Being specific

Each company is different from the other. Hence it is important to recognize before hand which company require what kind of PR strategies. Hence, I should be knowledgeable about major associations and their way of using social media strategies and content marketing. After all my work will shape the company’s face for the rest of the world to see and respond.

Studying notable PR influencers

I believe for one to do things, s/he needs to observe and learn first. Hence, I would follow and research on PR industry influencers and people from the companies that I am aiming to be a part of. Furthermore, this “stalking spree” will prove beneficial in terms of getting acquainted with the crises that occur and how pro PR people handled them to avoid future PR mishap.

Not forgetting traditional media

Though digital media is taking over the world like a storm, traditional print media is still as respectable as ten year ago before new media happened. Telling the Story by The Missouri Group considers newspapers and Magazines are better for complicated and delicate information. 

Getting involved

There’s no best way to know a company and its audience than to talk to a person for the company. Setting us an informational interview would be something that will help me to know the company that I am working for.

Here’s a online PR newletter that might be helpful.

Being Unveiled

Rohina Malik from Chicago Dramatists, performed her one woman show- Unveiled, on Tuesday, January 28 at the Thomas S. Gates, Jr. Community Center in College of the Atlantic.

In the hour-long play, Malik entwined five completely different lives facing a common hardship- being a victim of hate crimes, along with a cup of Masala chai (spiced milk-tea). From a lawyer to a rap artist to a wife, Malik, successfully presented the detestation and struggle of a normal Muslim woman, especially after 9/11, here in the US and also in Europe.  

UNVEILED, was generously sponsored by the YWCA in association with the College of the Atlantic Human Studies, Education, and Performing Arts Programs.

“Her work is quite powerful and her visit led to some extremely interesting conversations both on and off campus,” Jodi Baker, the Head of Theater here at COA said.

A Human ecology forum titled, “Anti-Muslim Bias, Harassment and Hate Crimes in the US and Europe”, was organized at the YWCA Mount Desert Island headquarters, 36 Mount Desert St., Bar Harbor, ME, the next evening, which was open to public community.

UNVEILED

The play was written and performed by Malik and premiered at the 16th Street Theater in 2009, where Rohina performed her play to sold-out houses and received critical acclaim. The play has received five different productions as of today.

                                                                                                        

More coverage on UNVEILED:   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/03/rohina-malik-unveiled_n_4039062.html  http://www.bates.edu/news/2014/01/17/solo-performance-to-unveil-muslim-womens-lives/

The artist

 Malik is a critically acclaimed playwright, actress and solo performance artist. Malik is currently a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists, and an artistic associate at the 16th Street Theater. Furthermore, she has performed at universities across the US and Canada, including Princeton University, University of Chicago, and many more.   

Malik was recently awarded the Y Award with the Evanston YWCA for her work to end racism and empower women.

Visit Malik's website for more information: rohinamalik.weebly.com 

Personal Experience

Most of the scenes were derived from personal experience, which made the audience shiver a bit while the others presented real tragic stories.  

For Grace Jia ’17, Malik’s a one-woman play, UNVEILED, proved to be very ”moving”. “She experienced it first hand and the events portrayed in the play didn’t needed to be manipulated for us to understand,” she said. “The different cultures and religions that people consider opposites were so similar. It was eye-opening,” she added about the performance.

Here in US

As per the FBI Hate Crimes statistics of 2012, 19 percent of the 5,790 single-bias hate crime incidents were due to religious bias. Likewise, other reported case motivations were against Hispanics, Jews and against sexual orientations.

 “During the questions section after the play, a member of the audience said that he hated Muslim and he thought women wore the veil to celebrate 9/11. That’s what he thought. “That’s why so much hate come from ignorance,” reminisced Malik at the interview for COA Newsworthy. “It’s Heart breaking. Rather than drop bomb drop books. It also makes me angry when people blame everybody for the action of a few,” she added.

More on hate crime statistics in the U.S.          http://www.civilrights.org/hatecrimes/united-states/          http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/civilrights/hate_crimes          http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-hate-crimes

“The anti Muslim bias is in some ways getting worse in the US.  And I fell like the play is a good way to have a dialogue to discuss this with folks and keep it going,” said Malik. 

“The solution is education. Build schools. It’s the power of the pen; it’s the power of knowledge and we do have real problems but the solution is not violence. Its more knowledge and education,” Malik added.

Human Ecology Forum at the YWCA

With audience including COA student body, faculty and general community people, the discussion was lead by COA visiting faculty member Steve Wessler and Malik on the intensity and effect of hate crimes in western nations including Austria, U.S and Germany. Furthermore, Malik concentrated on the detrimental stereotyping on Muslims and on why Muslim women and girls are at greater risk in the community to be abused.

In class

Malik also spent some time discussing religious conflict in Wessler’s class on Religious Intolerance. “[I] Had a great discussion. It was interesting hearing what moment of play resonated with different students. I hope to come back and work more with the students,” Malik said about the class.

Visiting Guest Artists

“We've been lucky to get a really diverse line-up of guest artists to COA this year (Mark Hosler of Negativland, Donna Oblongata of Vorführeffekt, Rohina Malik of Chicago Dramatists and in the spring we hope to have some members of Double Edge Theatre here). These artists are all extraordinarily unique in aesthetic and mission and they all approach their work with a level of intensity that is pretty inspiring to watch,” said Baker. “The dialogue that's sparked from live performance and from guest artists in the classroom and in the community is invaluable. It's such a great way to strengthen those connections between theory and practice, art and life, campus to local to global. It's been most impressive to see how students take the experience and filter it into their course work and personal work in all sorts of very cool and unexpected ways. I just love that,” she adds.