INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE KURDISTAN

The IMCK centre in Sulaymaniya had a scoop on July 29: a training room full of female journalists. Normally IMCK workshops are attended by one or two women, but now eighteen female journalists started a workshop on making a woman's magazine. The workshop takes 7 days, and is conducted by Dutch magazine maker Paulien Bakker, who already did the same for a group of women in Erbil a week earlier. The journalists will learn how to plan a magazine, how to find your target group and how to keep that in mind while making the magazine.

After Farshad Aria trained 14 camera men of Kurdistan TV, the station asked IMCK to provide another training for the editors to let them understand how to co-orporate with the camera men and how to edit in a professional way. Farshad started on July 27 his on-the-job training at the main station of the channel located in Salahadin. The training will last 5 days. Ten editors particpate in the training.

Marc van Willighagen started on July 26 his 5- day course on infographics for the satellite channel Kurdsat. He will learn the designers of the station how to make a creative infographic for their different programs. Infogra aphics can be used to picture information in a clear and attractive way. Most TV stations in Iraq do not make use of this way of giving information.

IMCK trainers Xdir Domle and Mariwan Hama Saeed briefed Hawlati chief Kamal Rauf and his deputy Kazhaw Jamal after two months of intensive training on text editing. The training focussed on improving the text editing process inside Hawlati, and started end of May 2010 on the job at the Hawlati office in Sulaymaniya. The conclusion is that after two months important changes have been made, and that text editors understand what they need to be doing. Hardly any stories appear now in the paper without having been through the hands of a text editor. To make the process sustainable, Mariwan Hama Saeed will use the final two months of the project to help reshape the internal organisation, to make a planning for staff meetings and make a style book. The project at Hawlati is made possible with funding of the Open Society Institute.

Cameramen from different TV stations in Sulaymaniya on July 20, 2010 started a workshop on camera and editing at the IMCK traininghall in the Kurdish city. Farshad Aria, who conducted a succesfull training for cameramen from Kurdistan TV the week before, was again assisted by co-trainer Mustafa Qais. The workshop takes 5 days and covers most basics of camerawork for TV.

In the IMCK traininghall in Erbil a group of women gathered on July 20, 2010 for a workshop on making a magazine. Magazinemaker and freelance journalist Paulien Bakker leads the workshop which focusses on many different aspects of magazine making: content, the reader, targets groups, budgets, internet etc. The workshop takes seven days and is organised in cooperation with the KRG Ministry of Culture. Participants are different female journalists active in Erbil.

Twelve cameramen from Kurdistan TV started a workshop on camera and editing at the traininghall of IMCK in Erbil. The workshop lead by cameraman/editor Farshad Aria from the Netherlands. It started on July 14 and will last for 5 days. Kurdistan TV is one of the main channels in Kurdistan, based in Erbil. It is funded by KDP, the biggest party in Kurdistan. Farshad Aria is born in Iran. He finished the Film Academy in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and works for different programs and companies in the Netherlands.

IMCK trainer Maaike Veen started an on the job training on economic reporting at KNN in Sulaymania. Seven journalists from the Gorran TV-station KNN take part in the workshop that started on Sunday July 4, 2010 and will last 5 days. Veen will teach them the basics of the working of the economy, and will help them find subjects to report on. Veen has trained extensively in Iraqi Kurdistan. She works as a freelancer in London, with the Financial Times, Trouw, de Standaard and others.