Women journalists trained to design their own websites [Archives:2006/912/Local News]

SANA'A, Jan. 9 ) An intensive training course to improve female media employee skills in designing websites concluded two weeks ago. Organized by Yemen Female Media Forum (YFMF) and held at Information & Communication Technologies City, the course trained 22 women journalists affiliated with the capital's different mass media: political, private and public newspapers, as well as television and radio.

YFMF chairwoman Rahma Hujaira said, “Unfortunately, there is no special website directed by Yemeni women to fight negative and out-of-date concepts used to address women's issues. We at YFMF aim to fund media issues, activities and all things related to women's issues.” She added that the course will enable trainees to publish their issues via websites and make achievements under patronage of the National Grant for Democracy Enhancement and Information & Communication Technologies City. “What distinguished this course was that the best three websites will be linked and sponsored by YFMF, Al-Sahwa Net Journal and Shora.net,” she noted.

Website technical design trainer Abdulghani Al-Yemeni noted the importance of encouraging female media staffers to use the internet to discuss their problems. “Due to the small number of women working in Yemen's media, Information & Communication Technologies City hopes to encourage them and assist them through information technology. Therefore, the internet will be of great advantage to them, given the relationship between journalism and the internet,” he said. “We teach them how to design websites on the internet, enabling them to contact other people all over the globe, to solve their problems and deal with large amounts of information,” he added.

News Yemen website Editor-in-Chief, Nabil Al-Sofi, participated in the course by lecturing attendees on the means of directing, running and selecting materials and resources for websites.

YFMF deputy chairwoman Dalia Hussain Anam noted the course is part of a program aiming to upgrade female media employee skills in handling women's issues efficiently through modern means. The program has training courses in: modern technology and skills to acquire information via computer; internet and designing websites; press art and editing and design skills; communication skills and photography. Additionally, there will be two workshops on gender discrimination and moderate Islamic views on women and training in international law and local law (Treaty of Human Rights and international promotion of women's rights and media liberty). Anam said 15 trainers from Yemen and other Arab countries will teach the courses.

Abdul Al-Qudos Al-Mansoor, manager of Information & Communication Technologies City, said the minister of communication was particularly interested in helping women in the media benefit from the information revolution. He declared the City will organize a free computer illiteracy reduction campaign for the public. “We have prepared 10,000 computers for this purpose. We will be ready to receive 100,000 trainees from all different classes in society; 50,000 of them to be female trainees,” he said.

In 2005, YFMF trained 90 women at Information & Communication Technologies City under sponsorship of the minister of communication, prompted by a YFMF study revealing that only 19 women in the media had their own E-mail addresses as of the beginning of 2004.
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