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This 8 Year old risks her life reporting to raise global awareness about Palestine
Janna, a 10 year old is the youngest armature journalist reporting about Palestine and her village
Janna could enjoy her childhood like every other 10 year old kid by playing and watching TV at her home. But she chose to risk her life reporting on the Palestinian – Israeli conflict in the occupied West Bank, with the aim to raise awareness about the plight of her people.
A resident of Nabi Saleh, a small Palestinian village north of the West Bank city of Ramallah, Janna has witnessed the tragedies of war from a very young age. Her mother, Nawal, talks about an incident where Jana was traumatized after one of her friends was shot dead by the Israeli army. “He was older than her but used to always be friendly and nice to her so that she became attached to him. When she saw his blood on the ground, she became frantic.”
Janna would often pen her feelings and frustrations in a locked journal and made it the only mode of communication, but the deaths of two of her relatives – her cousin, Mustafa Tamimi, and another uncle, Rushdie Tamimi – inspired her to get involved and reveal the injustice the people in her village are being subjected to.
Janna began her journalist career when she was just 7 years old. She would use her mother's iPhone to record protests staged by locals and international peace activists and the reaction of Israeli army. She believes that the professional journalists don't often give us the exact news so she takes up the responsibility to show the whole picture by posting videos on various social media platforms like, YouTube, Facebook or Snapchat.
“I want the world to know that we are not terrorists and to expose the army’s violence against us,” she told The Arab Weekly.
After rising to internet fame in 2014, and being hailed as one of the world’s youngest amateur reporters, Janna Jihad has expanded her work, travelling with her mother to places like Jerusalem, Hebron, Nablus and Jordan to shoot video reports and post them online.
Her Facebook page alone currently has over 80,000 likes."
Janna’s mother says she is both proud of her, but also very scared for her safety.
“I am proud of my daughter because as a child, she tells her message to the world. She shares her fears, what she feels, and the problems of attending school,” Nawal told Al Jazeera. “But I am scared for her, when the army comes in the middle of the night and tear-gases our house, and we wake up in smoke. They attack our people who demonstrate against the settlers and the Israeli occupation.”
Janna's dream is to study professional journalism at Harvard and get a job at CNN or FOX News, because “they do not talk about Palestine, and I want to make reports on Palestine”. And when asked about Janna's ideal world, she said, "I want it to be pink”.
Image Courtesy: Janna Jihad/Facebook