Lisa, 16 years old, lives in Mariupol

»My teacher discovered that Yellow Bus was coming to our city Mariupol. Yellow Bus is an organization that teaches children about film and journalism. That's how I came in touch with Yellow Bus, where I acquired knowledge and was invited to a summer camp.
The most important thing, that I learned from Yellow Bus, were the conversations with journalists. These journalists are also active at work right now and they know what's going on. And they have taught us basic journalistic practice, how to edit the content of a topic or how to make a film. Likewise I learned the specifics of montage, gained technical knowledge and how one presents oneself or speaks in front of a camera.
I don't watch popular TV channels from Ukraine. I'm more interested in news which I receive on Youtube channels; there is for example a channel called TV from Toronto and one journalist from this channel communicates messages with humor and they analyze how topics are processed by other media outlets. I find that exciting and it's useful as I'm working in a similar way.
There also were false reports in the media about Mariupol. The city was directly affected by the war and it became known throughout the country. However, even in popular news channels, things about Mariupol were sometimes invented. For example, it was often reported in the past that people were shooting in Mariupol, but we sat here and everything was calm. I'm living in the Eastern part of town and there were shootings in 2015, because this neighborhood is near the frontline. At that time I was afraid to live in this part of the city.
On January 6, 2015, when I was in sixth grade, there was heavy fighting in the Eastern part of Mariupol and multiple rocket launchers were also used. That was terrible and I was very scared. If I had been older, then I would have had more problems, to handle it all. As a younger person, you think that there were only bad people who did that.
Of course, an outsider can also understand that war is terrible and a lot is destroyed. But if you only see a picture of it then you can not really understand what happened at that time. It was such horror and terror, taking place here, this was really awful. We only experienced it once, but in other places it happened much more often and then it is even harder. I like to write and I like internet newspapers that I can read when taking the bus.
Many people in Ukraine did not know our city before the war, but because of the war, Mariupol often appeared in the news and this city has received a special attention. And the people in Mariupol have really felt what war means.
I'm affected by the deteriorated economic situation, prices have risen and inflation has increased. It's a crisis across the country and my family could live better before the war.
We used to have factories here too, but then my dad became unemployed. Now, he found a new job again. I got used to the situation and feel relatively safe.
I would like to say again that Yellow Bus is a cool project.«

<<    >>