Romana

On July 18, Concord Residence in Chicago was host for the second time to participants in the annual Teens on the Scene workshop. The Teens program offers young girls contact with the media and the opportunities of improving society offered by work in this field.

Teens is an initiative of Caroline Manalo, assistant animation producer in an Illinois company. Caroline says that it was some words of Blessed Josemaría Escrivá about the communciations media that inspired the initiative. “I was very much encouraged and strengthened in my conviction that the communications media could contribute enormously to the improvement of society, if we professionals had a Christian vision of life. I hope that Teens is transmitting that vision and that optimism to the girls and encouraging them to dedicate themselves professionally to some aspect of the media.”

The participants meet daily with professionals in the world of communication and visit a newspaper, the studios of a radio broadcasting company and a company that produces documentaries. The visit to a television studio is probably the most popular. There Jennifer Lyons, producer of a news program, explains how her Christian and moral convictions influence her work.

The program includes classes on marketing strategy, identification of audiences, promotional systems and ethics. The ethics classes deal with the right to information, respect for one’s private life, truth in the media and the influence of information on the human person.