INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE KURDISTAN

IMCK-trainer Maaike Veen started a 5-day workshop with nine of the staff of Awene newspaper, on reporting on economic issues. The training started on Sunday June 21, 2009 at the training hall of IMCK in Sulaymaniya. The workshop should result in a new economics page for Awene. Veen is teaching the Avene-reporters which issues would be interesting for their readers, how te report on them and what business and economic reporting really is about. Awene is an independent weekly newspaper, printed in Sulaymaniya. The training is mainly funded by the Dutch ngo Press Now.

Liesbeth van War-merdam started a workshop on design for IMCK with PUK-newspaper Kurdistani Nwe. The workshop, which started at the offices of the newspaper in Sulaymaniya on Saturday June 20, will last 5 days. Van Warmerdam is a freelance designer, who worked with the Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool. She will advise the designers of Kurdistani Nwe on modernising their design and rearranging the front page. The on-the-job training was made possible thanks to funding through the American reconstruction fund.

A unique project for Iraq will start in Irbil in August 2009. IMCK starts a journalism training for post graduates which will last for 8 months. At 'Media bo Khalq' 30 graduates from universities in the whole of Iraq, both Kurdish and Arabic, will be trained in Irbil to become a journalist. That was the message of a press conference by IMCK on Thursday June 18, 2009, at the Safeer Hotel in Irbil. IMCK-director Judit Neurink introduced lead trainer Khidr Domle and trainers Ako Muhammed and Goran Lohan to the press, and informed those attending about the details of the post graduate training. Next to local trainers, teaching in Kurdish and Arabic, international trainers will be invited to do workshops from time to time. Participants are asked to come forward no later then July 5. The best 30 will be selected on talent, curiosity and abilities. Twenty of them will get board and lodgings in the Safeer Hotel in Irbil, where the training will also take place.

The Kurdish press agency AK in Irbil was the venue of a 5-day training IMCK started on June 15. Trainer Maaike Veen was back at AK to train groups of editors and correspondents. She trained AK already in the preparatory phase in 2008, before the start last summer. AK has since grown to be one of the more successful press agencies in Kurdistan. It now publishes in Kurdish, Arabic, English, Farsi and Turkish ( http://www.aknews.com/ ). Its news is published in media all over the world.

Hawlati was the last newspaper Dutch trainer Nynke La Porte visited during her 6 day tour of Kurdish media for IMCK. She informed her Kurdish colleagues on how to report during and before elections, especially when a new opposition group joins the election race. She finished her tour on June 11. Journalists of Hawler newspaper, Kurdsat TV, Barzan newspaper, Zagros TV, Awene newspaper and Hawlati newspaper all went to the streets to ask people who they would vote for, and why. They found many people expected to vote for the new Change List, and the ruling parties KDP and PUK would be losing seats in the Kurdish parliament. Also, the subjects people found interesting, differed from what some journalists expected. Voters are mainly concerned about jobless youth, failing justice, water, electricity and roads. Safety is hardly an issue for voters in Kurdistan.

How to make better use of lights at TV studios? At Kurdsat IMCK on June 8 started a workshop on how to make better use of lighting. Dutch trainer Remco Roeters, a freelancer who worked with the main Dutch broadcasting companies, advises the lighting engineers of Kurdsat how to improve the light effects for studio programs. The workshop is done on the job, and last for 5 days. Roeters will also help the Kurdsat technicians to improve the light situation during running programs.

With parliamentary elections planned for July 25, IMCK is organising 6 workshops of a day on how to report before and during elections. Dutch trainer Nynke La Porte started on Saturday June 6 at Hawler newspaper in Irbil. La Porte is a Dutch journalist, who reported on at least 3 elections in the Netherlands. She is making a comparison with Dutch elections which were dominated by a new party, which was even predicted to become the biggest party in the Netherlands. In Kurdistan new parties have emerged, most importantly the Change List, which is predicted to take many votes. Hawler is a daily newpaper which prints 25.000 copies a day and is distributed for free in the whole of the Kurdish region. Other media to be trained will be Barzan, Zagros TV, Kurdsat TV, Awene and Rojnama.

Dutch trainer Robert Baltus returned to Kurdistan for the fifth time, to conduct an on the job training with the new TV-station KNN. Kurdistan News Network is owned by ex-PUK politician Nowchirwan Mustafa, and plays a role in the campaigning for the upcoming Kurdish parliamentary elections on July 25. Baltus is focusing on making the news program more attractive. He started on June 1 and will be with KNN until June 9. He was in Iraqi Kurdistan four times (after 2005) before for civil journalism workshops the Dutch ngo Press Now organised, in Duhok, Irbil and Sulaymaniya. Press Now helped to found IMCK, and is funding part of the organisation. The KNN workshop was made possible because of funding from the American reconstruction fund.