INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE KURDISTAN

The second edition of Media bo Khalk (Media for People, Al-Ilam al-Nas) is starting on November 2, 2010 in the new IMCK offices and training halls in Erbil. Thirty graduates from all over Iraq will participate in the training which lasts 8 months. The formal opening of the course will take place on November 14, with a ceremony in the Hotel Safeer in Erbil.

Next to teaching journalists, IMCK has taken on the task of taming three Kurdish kittens. Shera, Pasha and Rasha have adopted the IMCK office in Sulaymaniya as their home.

Computer software expert Jasper Krijgsman is helping Kurdsat TV to adapt its archives to the computer age. He started a consultancy of 5 days on October 26, 2010 at the studio's of Kurdsat in Sulaymaniya. Kurdsat wants to adapt its archive to digital recording and digitalise its existing archive as well. Krijgsman made the national archives of Dutch TV ('Beeld en Geluid') available for users of internet, and worked on a number of software projects in the Netherlands.

On October 20, Bart Top started his second training on Reporting on Minorities. Twelve TV journalists, with different backgrounds, joined the training. Aim of the training is that participants get more information about other groups in the society, and that they get to know collegues from outside their own group, whom they can contact when they need information. During this 5-day course guest lectures will be given by professionals on minority issues. Khidher Domle is co-trainer and Mohamed Ali is translator. The American Reconstruction Team (RRT Erbil) is funder of this training.

Fifteen print journalists from different ethnic and religious background started a workshop in Duhok on Reporting on Minorities. The training started on October 14, 2010 and will last for 5 days. Trainer is Dutch journalist Bart Top, who is a specialist on reporting on minorities and started a magazine on minorities in Holland some years ago. His co-trainer is IMCK senior trainer Khidher Domle, locally know for his knowledge on the different minorities in Iraq. The training will touch on taboos in reporting, responsible reporting, and reporting about other minorities than the group for which the journalist is reporting. Making people stories in stead of political or religious stories is also part of the workshop, which will be repeated for TV starting from October 21. The workshops make use of the knowledge available in the group of participants. The main aim is to stimulate journalists to report in a responsible way about the different minorities in Iraq, and thus improve the unstandi

Two IMCK trainers in Baghdad started on October 13 a five day workshop on Writing a News Reportage. This civil journalism workshop was attended by eight young journalists from different media outlets in Baghdad. Trainers are Kholoud al-Amery and Duraid Salman, who have been trained as trainers by IMCK. The main subjects of the workshop are: what is news, basic elements of making a good news story, how to make a news reportage, and how to conduct an interview for news and reportage.