The Hawkers

The Hawker: Exercising Student Voice and Advocacy

Hello! We are Chiara and Mazaya, the current Editors-in-Chief of the Hawker, an online magazine started and run entirely by Global Jaya students. Our team writes about a variety of topics, such as prevalent social issues, lifestyle tips, book and movie recommendations, and interesting student projects— all of which we post on our Instagram account, @gjshawker. We aim to keep our readers informed about relevant issues and trends, while providing our writers a platform to voice their inte

Our induction meeting was held in late August to welcome new members and familiarize them with our writing process. This ensures that everyone in our organization can collaborate to produce consistently high-quality work.

The Hawker has five divisions: Current Events, Lifestyle, Scholastic News, Entertainment, and Design. Each division has its own Division Head and at least 3 members, with 6 being the most at the moment. We currently have a total of 22 members.

The Current Events division is responsible for covering local and international news, with a focus on social and cultural issues. This September, the Current Events team wrote three articles for the Hawker: ‘Vaccinations in Indonesia’, ‘What’s Happening in Afghanistan’, and ‘The Texas Abortion Law’, which we believe are some of the most pressing news of the month. As it wouldn’t be possible to recap every single news item and we don’t wish to overwhelm our readers with information, we’ve devoted ourselves to writing articles on topics that are most relevant to Global Jaya students specifically or those that give our writers an opportunity to explore social, cultural, economic or even environmental issues.

The Lifestyle division is in charge of catering all sorts of lifestyle tips, tricks, and suggestions, curated to the needs and interests of Global Jaya students. In the first term, the Lifestyle division covered one topic for September and October. The first post discussed the importance of self-care— an issue we selected due to the prevalence of “burning out” amongst the student body. In October, we covered the global issue of (Un)conscious Consumption, Sustainable Fashion, and its roles in our everyday life— chosen due to the rising trend of thrifting amongst youths as an attempt to counter the fast fashion industry. With the current climate of COVID-19 and blended learning, the Lifestyle division is committed to maintaining the wellbeing of our fellow Hawks through easy-to-digest articles.

The Scholastic News division provides information regarding recent and prominent school events or decisions. We are not only concerned with what the school does, but also how their decisions affect student learning and emotion. The ultimate aim of this division is to strengthen the school community by building student bonds and developing engagement. In September, the Scholastic division wrote about Global Jaya’s new blended learning procedures. The transition back to campus is a challenging time for everyone so we hoped to provide assurance and information to ease adaptation. October’s article will focus on promoting ongoing or upcoming student-led projects that have benefited the community.

Finally, the Entertainment Division is focused on providing students with information about different forms of entertainment and media. With how hectic school can be, we believe it is important to encourage students to take some time to relax and de-stress. We hope that our honest reviews can build trust with our audience. In September, the team highlighted some of our “favourite fictional book quotes”, while in October, the division suggested movies and shows that students can “binge-watch" during term break. Overall, we hope that we can provide new sources of entertainment to improve students’ moods.

We would also like to acknowledge the hard work of our Design team and the effort they put into designing every single Hawker post. The Design division allows aspiring designers to exercise their creativity while developing valuable technical skills. As Editors-in-Chief, we can safely say that without them, our organization would not run as smoothly.

At the end of each month, we compile all the articles we’ve published as a PDF that we call a ‘Hawker Archive’. In doing so, we hope to establish a presence in the school community and give our readers the chance to look through the work we’ve done through a more compact and efficient medium. The archives also allow community members who don’t have access to social media a chance to view our work.

We sincerely thank you for your support and hope that you look forward to our future issues. Follow @gjshawker on Instagram to read our most recent articles or visit this folder to access all our Hawker Archives. Happy reading!