Editor's Note: We Are Not Numbers and its writers participated in the first-ever Palestine Podcast Academy offered by Latitude Adjustment Podcast and Stitching Open Roads Media.
I recently finished a training program with the Palestine Podcast Academy, where I participated as a member of We Are Not Numbers and learned how to create my own podcast. Now I want to tell the world about this way of communicating and what it can mean for other writers like me.
I have long believed that every experience is life-defining and is meant to bring me a step closer to knowing what I am capable of. All experiences can make me better and influence my growth. Some experiences do bring more opportunities, however, and this one was the best I’ve experienced so far in my life.
The idea of podcasting has appealed to me for a long time as a way to make my voice and the voices of other women heard. I saw it as a platform that would allow us all to share our stories, talk about our interests, our rights, our responsibilities, our problems, our insecurities and the obstacles that prevent us from realizing our dreams. It offers a good way to raise awareness and to elevate one another with our words and our perspectives,
When I first heard about the opportunity to apply for this academy I was thrilled, and I was lucky enough to be selected from nearly ninety applicants to be one of the first participants. The training brought together people from Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem, and we all worked together as if there were no differences between us because of where we were from.
In this workshop we made our first small podcast as a practice project, learning about audio editing in the process. Now we are preparing our final podcast project. At the same time, this training has shown me a surprising thing about myself: I have a talent for imitating voices. This qualifies my voice as an excellent podcasting instrument!
I am really enjoying learning how to make my own show. I have learned during the training that my voice and my words matter, and that they can be powerful. Participating in the project gave me the confidence I needed to get started, and it also gave me the focus I needed to identify the theme I wanted to follow.
I have determined that my podcast will be about giving Palestinian women a platform to tell their stories. In this context I will talk about my own perspectives on Palestine, what a normal day is like for me in Gaza, my concerns and struggles for my family and friends. And I will open it to other Palestinian women to show how they see and experience life here as well.
In the process of making the practice podcast, I got to know what Gaza really means to me and all the things I love about it. I realized how essential is the bond I have with this place.
My gratitude for this experience with the Palestine Podcast Academy is overflowing. They taught me a lot, they added new value to my life, they influenced my growth, they enriched my personality and they helped to shape my identity. My journey with life and with podcasting continues!
Eric Maddox is the host of Latitude Adjustment Podcast and the creator of the Palestine Podcast Academy. He completed his graduate research in Conflict Transformation while living in the West Bank and collecting oral histories from the 1948 War. Connect with the podcast via Instagram, FaceBook, and Twitter.