Full Community Voices audio:
Press Forward Springfield is awarding its first project grants. NPR Illinois along with the Illinois Times and Capitol News Illinois will each receive funding to report on a different untold story in our community. The three reporting projects will be posted in May.
The Community Foundation for the Land of Lincoln in collaboration with the Field Foundation and the Illinois Department of Human Services are leading this project as part of the Healing program.
NPR Illinois is using the grant to test its vision for community reporting and journalism training — the Journalism Corps or "J-Corps."
In our LISTEN sessions last year, we asked for volunteers to continue to report on their communities. This grant gives us the opportunity to provide two of these aspiring community journalists with training and professional editing. Amina and Hafsa Rahman will also helps us better understand our neighbors.
Randy Eccles: Northwestern University recently reported that the amount of journalism across the state is dropping precipitously. For a while, NPR Illinois has been very interested in being able to cover more of the community. In 2024, we did the LISTEN series around the community. Our hope was not only to hear about different communities, but also to find some people in those communities who would be willing to report out on them.
We're proud to announce today, we're doing our first trial of what we're calling, "J-Corps," or Journalism Corps. We will work with interested citizens to train them to be community journalists and have them actually report on something. We're really excited today to have our first reporters here. Amina Rahman, tell us about yourself.
Amina Rahman: Hi, I'm Amina. I am originally from Canada, but I've lived in Chicago for almost 20 years. And then I moved here to Springfield about four years ago. I'm really excited to be a part of this project to learn. Also, to get an opportunity to talk about the communities that I'm part of. One of which is the Muslim community here in Springfield.
I was lucky enough to be part of the LISTEN sessions, both with the Greater Springfield Interfaith Society, as well as with the Muslim community. It was a great opportunity to also get to hear about other communities because we listened to the other LISTEN sessions.
Randy Eccles: And we're joined by your daughter...
Hafsa Rahman: I'm Hafsa. I'm 16 years old. I'm a junior at Glenwood High School. I've been interested in journalism for a while. Possibly as a career one day for myself. And I'd really like to let other people get to know about Muslims in my community, because often they don't see parts of that.
I think this is a really good opportunity to get people to know something a little different.
Amina Rahman: Sometimes people have a little bit of resistance to go and ask a question because they feel like shy or they don't know if it's a nice question to ask. So sometimes if you give them more information, they'll feel more comfortable to come and ask.
Randy Eccles: Along the way, if something develops that day, or something happens in the community, it may not end up being in your final report, but it may be something to let us know that the community is thinking about. As we were sitting down today, they were announcing a ceasefire in Gaza and Israel. Is that something that will be a discussion in the Muslim community, the interfaith community?
Hafsa Rahman: Definitely, because for Muslims, Palestine is a very special place. The things that happen to other Muslims around the world, it's very important for us to support our brothers and sisters. A lot of Muslim people will be thinking about them now, especially as things calm down a little, and hopefully less people are unsafe and in danger.
It is a big deal for things like that to happen in our community, and it definitely gets thought about in households and in the community itself.
Randy Eccles: Have you had some thoughts of what you might want to report on?
Hafsa Rahman: I definitely want to start sharing some of the basics about Muslims because I feel like, as a high schooler, a lot of people just don't know very simple things like why I wear a scarf on my head or why I go to pray during my study hall sometimes.
Randy Eccles: Is there anything that has you, at this point, a little uneasy about what you have to do?
Hafsa Rahman: It's definitely a new thing, the stuff I have to learn about. Even though it's focused on our community, we have to remain objective. I'm mostly excited, but there's definitely a little anxiety of how to do everything.
Amina Rahman: Really excited to learn and to get a chance to showcase the community, but also hopefully other people will be inspired to share their community as well so that we can all benefit.
Randy Eccles: We also have an editor from here at the University of Illinois Springfield. Priyanka Deo will be editing.
Priyanka Deo: I'm very excited about what our community reporters are going to produce.
Excited to help them script it and formalize it so that it becomes a fluid story. A lot of it is gonna be based on their experiences. For any minority group living in a small town, it is a different experience. I'm quite excited to hear what they have to say and what they have experienced, because I myself am from a minority group.
It can't just be, "Oh, I went to school and I felt this." It has to be journalistic. It has to be objective. It has to have an angle. It has to tell a story. So that is what I hope to help them with, and I'm sure we'll have a fantastic piece at the end of it.
Randy Eccles: If you have any constructive thoughts or suggestions, please email us at engage@nprillinois.org. Amina Rahman and her daughter, Hafsa, who will be community reporters and Priyanka, thanks for joining us and helping us out with this project. Stay tuned week to week. You'll see how things are happening.
Follow along each Friday through May with this J-Corps Audio Journal.
Press Forward Springfield is awarding its first project grants. NPR Illinois along with the Illinois Times and Capitol News Illinois are each receiving funding to report on different untold stories in our community. The three reporting projects will be posted in May.
Community Foundation for the Land of Lincoln in collaboration with the Field Foundation and the Illinois Department of Human Services are leading this project as part of their Healing Illinois program.
NPR Illinois is using the grant to test its vision for community reporting and journalism training — the Journalism Corps or "J-Corps."
