INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE KURDISTAN

International trainer Harriet Salm started a seven day training for female Iraqi journalists, to get more stories about women on the front pages of their papers. Even though almost 60 percent of all Iraqi's is female, only few stories about then can be found in the first (and most read) pages of the media. The journalists will learn how to write for a broader public, and how to recognize women stories that are worthy of the front pages. The workshop started on March 7, 2012 at the traininghall of IMCK in Sulaymaniya. The 14 participants for the course come from all over Iraq, and the training is taught in Kurdish and Arabic. Co-trainers Koral Noori and Khidher Domle will make sure all the participants understand and digest the material offered. To convince the editors in chief that women stories are important for their media, and will help them sell more copies as they will be able to reach an extra target group, they will be invited for the last day of the training. The ...

International trainer Ruth Hopkins started a special week on human rights with the students of the post graduate course in journalism, Media bo Khalk. She will show the students what human rights are, in what way journalists can report on them. She will also give the students a basic view on international law, on what consequences these have for the situation in Iraq. The course will focuss on human rights all over the world, not only in Iraq. Hopkins trains on the same subject at the Journalism Academy in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

IMCK director Judit Neurink participated on March 24 in Amman in the Iraq Donor Conference, organised by the Danish organisation International Media Support. Different donors for media and media-organisations discussed the present situation in Iraq and the consequences for the media, the needs of media and ways for the organisations to coordinate and cooperate. Other representatives in the meeting, apart those from IMCK and IMS, were from Open Society Institute, Unesco, the Swedish embassy in Baghdad, Internews, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Press Now and Irex.

During an official ceremony in Erbil 16 participants of Media bo Khalk (Media for People, Al-Alam al-nas) were presented with their certificates. The sixteen have finished eight months of training in journalism, including internships at Iraqi media outlets. The ceremony was attended by members of the press, editors in chief, politicians, diplomats and others. KRG-minister of Culture Kawa Mahmoud held a speech about the importance of professional media for the development of democracy in his country. Ari Harsin spoke for KDP and mentioned how important it is for Kurds and Arabs in Iraq to work together, stressing the importance of projects like Media bo Khalk for the whole of Iraq. The chargé d´affairs ad interim at the Dutch embassy in Baghdad, Lars Tummers, explained to the audience that the Dutch are good at bringing quality media to other countries, and Michael Mussi, Provincial Action Officer at the US Reconstruction Team in Erbil drew a picture of the role of the media in a socie...

IMCK -trainers are getting ready for starting the post graduate course in journalism, Media bo Khalq , on August 1, 2009. Xdir Domle , Ako Muhamed , Mazen al - Taer and Salam Ibrahim will train 30 participants from all over Iraq to become independent journalists. Canadian TV-maker Don North takes them through the details of TV-making and how to share this knowledge with the students that will join the training in Irbil . Media bo Khalk (Media for People) will be officially opened on August 1 in Irbil by a number of Kurdish and international officials.

Thirteen Kurdish journalists started November 15 in Irbil on a three day training on text editing. The training was organised by IMCK together Kurdistan Journalist Syndicate in Irbil and the Kurdish Organisation for Civil Development. The training will teach experience journalists how to edit the texts of their colleagues, before they are printed. This should help to make Kurdish newspapers more attractive and stories and newsitems more reliable. The participants are from different print media in Irbil, both partymedia and (semi-) independent. The trainers are Judit Neurink (director IMCK and senior trainer) and Khidr Domle (freelance journalist and trainer for IMCK).

Civil journalism is putting people central in reporting. What are the results of (new) policy for the people, for Sosan and Serdar? How do people feel about changes? 4000 kids who have a heart problem is bigger news than strife inside one of the parties. Kids playing in dirty water and getting ill, as well. So are the problems of Asians coming to do the dirty work in Kurdistan, and the consequences for Kurdish labor. Civil journalism puts people first, and politics at their service. It makes media more interesting for their consumers, because they find stories about their own lives. This amounts to papers being sold and read better, radio being listened to more frequently and TV being watched with more interest.

The Independent Media Centre in Kurdistan was founded in May 2008 and is supported by the Dutch ngo’s Press Now and Democracy and Media. Funding is both Dutch, international and Kurdish. Its main office is in Sulaymaniya, but the centre also has offices in Duhok and Irbil. Press Now started training civil journalism in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2004, and has since trained a few hundred journalists from different media (radio, TV, print). The Media Centre will extend the work started by Press Now, giving equal time and energy to journalists from different backgrounds - political, social, religious and ethnic.