Submitted by M.Momin on Mon, 2013/05/06 – 11:05
Journalists face countless challenges while covering events and reporting in Afghanistan, not only Afghanistan, but every region and country in conflict presents a certain set challenges to media and journalists.
However, Afghanistan presents a unique set of challenges because the environment and circumstances in which journalists have to do their day to day work, per se, are complicated and beset with problems of different nature, and the other notable fact is that media in Afghanistan is new and cannot tailor itself with changing conditions, simply; it has not acquired the adaptabilities needed to deal with issues in a professional fashion.
And, this is where it role of “Conflict Sensitive Journalism” comes into play. Conflict sensitive journalism provides journalists with tools and the know-how to play a constructive role in a conflict, while stay safe and do their job as they are required by their profession.
Mediothek Afghanistan has been providing journalists with professional trainings and programs to building up their working capacity, including conflict sensitive trainings. On the 24th – 28th of April of 2013, Mediothek organized a four-day workshop on conflict sensitive reporting for journalists of eleven different provinces, provinces which have been hardly hit by the ongoing conflict.
The four-day workshop was conducted in the main office of Mediothek in Kabul; it covered a wide range of topics such as Conflict analysis, violence and its kind and Principles of Conflict Sensitive Reporting… and provided opportunity for participants to exercise practical examples of conflict sensitive reporting, and exchange their opinions with guest speakers from different organizations including the bureau chief of DPA in Kabul.
Participants evaluated the workshop very passively, saying the topics discussed and learned during this course will service them as a field guide when they cover conflict related topics in their respective provinces.
Fourteen journalists participated in the workshop. At the end of the workshop, participants of this workshop as well as the participants of the two TOT programs (basic and advanced TOT) had th opportunity to socialize not only with each other but with almost eighty plus guests invited for the cultural evening event held by Mediothek Afghanistan in its main office.
The culture evening event was an effort to bring together members of the Afghan civil society institutions, foreign and international organizations, embassies, members of local government institutions and Kabul based media institutions with participants of the three workshops, most of them from provinces. It provided a very good chance for the participant to establish network and exchange contacts with member of media and civil society institutions…
The four-hour culture event ended with the distribution of certificates and dinner – and of course Afghan traditional music was a memorable part of the program for all.
