Kabul, 3 October 2006
Unprecedented coverage collected in four magazines
The distribution of four one-issue magazines throughout Afghanistan offering a unique coverage on Human Rights, Education, Economics, and Health and Environment by Afghan journalists has started last week and will continue on the current one, part of it as an insert to The Killid Group weeklies Killid and Mursal.
The cover page main headlines are, respectively, “Women know better”, “No teachers, no buildings”, “Not only poppies” and “Health grows slowly, Pollution fast.” Five thousand bilingual Dari and Pashto copies of each has been printed. It includes English briefs of each story.
Feature articles were covered by trainees of the Centre for International Journalism (CIJ) within on-the job workshops held in eight Afghan provinces between January and June 2006.
The features were then edited by CIJ trainers and Pajhwok Afghan News (PAN) editors as well. PAN was also responsible for translating all the stories into Dari, Pashto and English.
Along 2006, selected feature articles have been disseminated nationally by PAN and The Killid Group (TKG) media products (Radio Killid Kabul and Herat, Killid and Mursal weeklies) and internationally by the news agency IPS-Inter Press Service. Groups of readers are now reading the stories and getting feed-back in 24 villages across the country.
The special magazines have been laid-out by TKG’s design and lay-out manager Mir Rohullah Sadat, with photos by the company’s photographer Najibullah Musafer, and are being distributed by TKG’s Nye Express.
Led by TKG in partnership with CIJ, PAN, IPS and Sayara Media & Communication this activity took place within a one year specialized training, contents production and national and international dissemination activity funded by the Delegation of the European Commission in Afghanistan, which has no responsibility on its contents.
Over 150 journalist and students of journalism have participated in the workshops, attended as well by media managers to enhance their business skills, and by central and provincial governmental media officers.
Also 20 regional radio programmes, 4 national ones and Open Recording community events were produced by trainees selected in the faculties of journalism in five Afghan universities (Bamyan, Herat, Kandahar, Mazar-e-Sharif and Nangarhar.) The workshops were conducted by CIJ and the radio programmes edited by Sayara, which has also collect all of them in a CD. The distribution of its 15,000 copies by Nye Express will start next week.
For more information contact project’s coordinator Ricardo Grassi.
0799 318 861 – ricardo.grassi@thekillidgroup.com
Project Partners
TKG (The Killid Group – www.thekillidgroup.com) owns Radio Killid in Kabul and Radio Killid in Herat and the two independent national Afghan weeklies – Killid and Mursal. Print distribution runs to 40 thousand copies and TKG’s Nye Express is the only national company for the distribution of independent press.
CIJ is an Afghan journalist training entity with a team of experienced Afghan journalists whose goals are to teach international journalism standards, ethics and practical skills. CIJ also defends professional journalists facing threats or harassment; writes and translates international journalism books for universities and media organizations; and offer professional courses for media officers.
Sayara Media and Communication (www.sayara-media.com) is an Afghan-French organisation helping to develop a new generation of journalists by supporting practical journalism training in the universities of Kabul, Khost, Jalalabad, Kandahar, Mazar, Bamyan and Herat. Under the Novice Journalism Training Program (NJTP) Sayara has developed radio production and broadcasting facilities, computing and Internet training centres, relationships with local and national radio stations and the national Youth Voice network.
Pajhwok Afghan News (www.pajhwok.com) is the independent Afghan daily news agency. Since its launch in July 2004 it has become the main news provider in the country, reaching almost all Afghan media, NGOs and the international community. Pajhwok stories are available in Dari, Pashto and English.
IPS News Agency’s (www.ips.net) mission is to report with independence on civil society, globalisation, development and human rights. The news service reaches more than 500 print publications with an estimated readership of 200 million people. IPS stories are also used by 1,000 radio stations and read on IPS websites with more than two and a half million page views per month. In its contribution to help strengthen media in Afghanistan, in 2004 IPS entered into an agreement with Pajhwok Afghan News to broadcast special coverage of the country as it moved forward after the presidential elections. The stories could be found at a regularly updated special IPS site dedicated to the process.
The activity was funded by the Delegation of the European Commission to Afghanistan. Its content is the sole responsibility of the partner organisations and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Commission.
