WST Director Stephen King

A recent conference has explored the best ways of tapping into the power of the media to bring the issues of children and women higher on the national agendas, and to work towards creating a more caring and compassionate society.

The conference, 'The Role of the Media in Safeguarding the Rights of Women and Children', was funded by the European Commission and was held in February in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

The conference brought together media professionals, editors, heads of NGOs and experts, as well as representatives of governments of the three participating countries - Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan and other global delegates.

The overall project will train journalists, NGO workers and editors in all three countries, before launching programme making in multiple media formats, including documentary TV films on issues relating to women and children. It will partner the BBC World Service Trust’s expertise and know-how in journalism and documentary production with local experience and sensitivities.

The project's main activities will include: delivering training workshops for journalists; developing onsite consultancy visits to media outlets: using media outreach training to get key messages across to target groups: working with partners to deliver co-produced media output: developing a dissemination system by tapping into a network of informal media outlets and producing a set of online resources to support the wider training programme.

Though the above, the project aims to:

• Improve the skills of working journalists with a view to ensuring that
programmes focusing on women’s and children’s issues are balanced, objective and participatory:

• Increase and enrich the coverage of vulnerable groups at target media outlets, thereby raising awareness of key issues in local societies.

• Encourage the media to give women and children a platform through which their opinions and concerns can be expressed.

• Build the capacity of the CSO sector to promote key messages, especially in rural areas.

The project is being run in partnership with three local organisations: the Osh Media Resource Centre, Bereke and NANSMIT, and two international organisations: IREX Europe, and Eurasia Media Centre.