The cross-border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan are facing conflict and militancy for last few years. Various clashes and conflicts are being faced by the region but the incidents happening in these areas are not properly reported in the International media. The journalists working in these areas lack journalistic skills to professionally report conflicts in their areas. The Media House Peshawar has already designed to conduct workshop to enhance the capacity of the journalists working in these areas. Therefore, the Media House Peshawar has organized the 5–day training on Conflict Sensitive Journalism workshop.
The workshop provided training in basic journalistic standards and peace journalism. It facilitated skills among Pashto speaking journalists and editors, and create a safe journalistic working environment in Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA). The workshop highlighted positive examples of peace initiatives and development works. Therefore it will enhance the motivation of the Pashto communities to get involved in the internationally supported peace and democratization process in the region. In order to stress positive developments and not workshop only negative aspects and violence it will use narratives of interactions between individual community members, development workers, government employees and other actors describing in detail their work and their objectives that are summarized as peace, conflict transformation, and development for the tribal belt.
Aims and objectives:
Main purpose of the workshop was to train journalists to professionally report sensitive events in conflict-hit areas situated closely with Pak-Afghan border.
Ideas and concepts of peace and conflict journalism, conflict theory (1 day)
Analyzing, monitoring and evaluating conflict in tribal belt (1 day)
What stories to cover and how to cover, how to report on violence (1 day)
How to provide space for debate, encourage conflict transformation and peace initiatives (1 day)
Active reporting as training on the job – group work (1 day)
Plan and Methods:
Media House in Peshawar has organized a five- day training workshop from January 19-23, 2009 at in Hayatabad Peshawar. The target group consists of 28 Pashto speaking print, radio and TV journalists as well as editors from Afghanistan and Pakistan. The approach taken is a combination of capacity building and provision of a safe voluntary working environment. Training courses are of special importance on the Afghan side of the border since only comparatively few courses for journalistic capacity building have been offered so far. Afghans, together with their Pakistani colleagues, will develop awareness of the leverage their reporting has on the conflict through peace journalism.
The workshop conducted by Ms Britta Petersen one of the qualified German trainer.
