Journalists join forces to promote civil society issues [Archives:2008/1206/Local News]

Ola Al-Shami
SANA'A, Nov. 9 ) In a first of its kind initiative sixteen journalists from state, political parties and independent newspapers as well as freelancers came together to promote civil society issues through their work.

The journalists agreed to create a coordination committee of three journalists who will align the efforts of the rest of the group and hence a campaign for a particular topic relating to civil society each month.

This initiative came as a result of a five-day training workshop on basic journalism skills organized by the Investing in the Future program for the sixteen journalists.

The first topic has already been selected as a part of the training, whereby the journalists will write features on child labor and publish them in three state media newspapers, two media websites, four independent newspapers and two affiliated with political parties, as well as the program's website menassat.com.

During the workshop senior trainer Petrus Schothorstiner explained that the program includes another training element on legal defending of journalists.

This training targets lawyers and sensitizes them to the issues of press freedom and how to defend journalists if prosecuted because of their profession.

The group which included several female journalists will also create a seed for a larger network of professional media persons in Yemen and those within the Investing in the Future network of media people in another three countries; Jordan, Egypt and Morocco where the program operates.

“We hope that from this networking a group of professional journalists who have the qualifications and abilities to train in media will emerge.

These trainers can then cover a local need for training in media in Yemen instead of always bringing expensive external expertise