The Nurek reservoir which lies to the south of Dushanbe

Tajikistan doesn't come under this category. Rachel Ellison of the Trust recently ran a three week training course there for women journalists…

Since independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991, Tajikistan has endured a 6 year civil war and struggled economically.

Subsidies from Moscow ceased - previously busy aluminium and uranium processing plants stand silent and decaying.

Unemployment is rife and in rural areas, some people are starving.

Women are especially vulnerable

In a society where the media is partially or totally controlled by the government, it’s difficult for people to assert their rights. Many don’t even know them. Women are especially vulnerable.

	Training took place in from Khojand to Khorog.

That’s why UNESCO asked the BBC World Service Trust to deliver a journalism training programme aimed at women journalists that will help to raise awareness and coverage of women’s issues.

Training centres were arranged all over the country, from Khojand in the north, to Khorog in Badakhshan region which borders Afghanistan, Pakistan and China.

Teaching principles of journalism

Each group received five days of journalism training. The course covered accuracy, impartiality and balance, and fact versus opinion.

It taught sources of reliable information and how to resist government pressure to change your story or apologise for broadcasting it.

This is a revolution for us...we just didn't know you could work like this.   Parvona Akhrori

It also drew attention to the view of ordinary people, instead of always interviewing government officials.

"You probably think we're lazy or unenergetic, but this is a revolution for us," said one of our participants. "We just didn't know you could work like this."

For Parvona Akhrori fair and balanced reporting was an anathema. Before the course she never thought to find two opposing opinions on a story.

Parvona wasn't the only person.

Having taught the principles of good journalism, we wanted to see if our students would put them into practise….so off they went out to the bazaars and lorry drivers' cafes, to clinics and schools, recording interviews, features and vox pops.

The radio production

By the end of the week, each group had produced their own radio programme on women's issues…a sort of 'Tajik Woman's Hour' if you like.

Despite the crackles and the clunks from poor equipment and newly learned editing skills, we heard numerous powerful stories about the things that matter most to women.

Of husbands returning home from working in Russia, bringing not just cash, but AIDS with them.

Of rising suicide rates amongst women who feel desperate to change their lives but feel they can't.

	Trust trainer Rachel Ellison in the classroom

We heard stories of women holding down two or three jobs, just to make ends meet. Of the rural economy where women struggle to manage the land in the absence of men who have gone abroad….and of girls who are denied secondary school education because they're more useful at home.

For Tajik women journalists, the training course was a chance to have a glimpse of a world outside their own.

It was also a forum to validate the need for women to know their rights and try to enforce them and to encourage each other as they battle through the ordinary things in life.