SPEL storytellers start the 2024 summer session
By hola | Published | No Comments
As the summer unfolds, we are thrilled to welcome a large, new cohort of enthusiastic interns to our team of returning interns and fellows in our Storytelling Program for Experiential Learning (SPEL). One of those talented new team members is Chioma Ukaobasi, a 16-year-old sophomore at D.C.’s School Without Walls High School who has joined SPEL’s Arts & Humanities team. She says her interest in pursuing a writing profession drew her to the program.
“Over the years, I’ve grown to enjoy writing, especially when I know what I’m doing and what I’m talking about,” says Ukaobasi. While she likes many types of writing, she says she especially likes “the informative type,” which is what we do at SPEL.
The program is designed to enrich interns’ academic pursuits and prepare them for dynamic careers.
Excited to enhance her writing skills, Ukaobasi is passionate about journalism. “It’s a brutally brave profession …” she says. “I just really respect the job.”
What she likes about Hola Cultura is its mission. “It’s a specialized organization that makes sure Latino stories are heard — it gives these nonmainstream Latino artists a platform to explain themselves,” says Ukaobasi. “It’s cool that we emphasize their stories in their own words in the articles we write about them.”
The summer semester began on June 4. SPEL interns and fellows from D.C. and around the country will continue meeting every Tuesday through July 30, working together to interview local Latino artists and creatives and carry out an investigative reporting project. During that process, SPEL participants will develop communication skills and gain experience working in a professional environment. Summer interns are about to start work on new stories, having just wrapped a series of rapid training workshops on topics such as crediting sources and journalistic ethics.
SPEL’s Society & Culture team also has ambitious plans this summer.
“We have two big projects that the SPEL interns will be helping out with. They relate to our climate and environmental justice reporting,” says Marcelo Jauregui-Volpe, Hola Cultura’s assistant editor and a co-fellow on the Society & Culture team. “One is ‘The Climate Divide,’ the podcast I host and produce. We will be launching our fourth season later this summer.”
Jauregui-Volpe, who is also a local to the D.C. community, says he is ready to continue his work with “The Climate Divide” podcast, which explores how environmental hazards disproportionately affect low-income residents, particularly communities of color in Washington, D.C., and across the country.
“The other project is an investigative story that focuses on D.C.’s tree cover and the state of D.C.’s trees particularly,” says Jauregui-Volpe. “It’s a pretty ambitious project. There’s a lot of research and interviews [for both projects] that we hope to incorporate the interns in.”
The 2024 summer semester of SPEL promises to be an enriching and transformative experience for our new and returning interns. We look forward to the stories our SPEL reporters have in store for you this summer.
– Story by Yoana Reyes-Zapata
– Copy edited by Michelle Benitez
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