A young journalist is queen of her thoughts

Faten Al Jammal lives in Burj al-Shamali, a Palestinian refugee settlement in southern Lebanon built as a temporary refugee camp in 1955. A journalism student at the Lebanese American University, who also reports for an online platform, she uses the digital sphere to express herself and report on stories from Burj al Shamali.

"I live in the south of Lebanon, in Burj al-Shamali, a refugee camp. I study journalism at the Lebanese-American-University. I work for an online-platform called Nastopia as a correspondent. I make videos about positive stories in a refugee camp. People in the camps are so often portrayed in a negative way. I have only been carrying a smartphone for three years and the connection is not the best. But I send my videos to my editor so he can upload them. But he also faces problems. The Internet gave me the possibility to express myself so I can be the queen of my own thoughts."

The #speakup barometer is a DW Akademie project that examines the connection between digital participation, freedom of expression and access to information. Learn more at www.dw.com/barometer