INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE KURDISTAN

Participants on IMCK's workshop on oil report returned to the mediacentre in Sulaymaniya for a network meeting. On June 28, 2011, they spent a day discussing their stories with trainer Ben Lando, who runs the Iraqi Oil Report website. Special guest was Adnan Mayah, project officer of Al Mesalla Org for Human Resources Development, who briefed the reporters on the EITI project in Iraq, which collects information on the oil industry in Iraq and needs a Kurdish component too. The reporters are asked to submit their stories on oil related subject no later then July 15, to be able to compete for the Oil is Money Prize that IMCK and Iraqi Oil Report are offering for the best stories on this subject. The project is made possible with funding of the Open Society Institute.

It was full and hot in the training hall of IMCK in Sulaymaniya. Even though it was a Friday, almost twenty journalists participated on June 10, 2011 in the workshop about illegal immigration. Experts from Statt Consulting shared information on the effects of Kurds taking illegal routes to the West, about policies, and the lives of people who left, were not accepted and has to come back to Kurdistan. The two workshops are meant to give Kurdish journalists more detailed information about the problem, and stimulate them to report on it in their media.

Is the West the Paradize? Under this titel IMCK together with Statt Consulting organizes two workshops about illegal migration and Iraqi Kurdistan. Journalists are invited to workshops of a day in Erbil and Sulaymaniya, with experts and guests on the subject. 21 journalists from different Kurdish media attended the workshop held on June 8, 2011 at the IMCK traininghall in Erbil. They were informed about migrantion and its rules, the results of migration for persons and societies and about personal stories concerning migration. The second workshop will be held in Sulaymaniya on June 10.

Photographers in Duhok started on Sunday June 5, 2011 on an 3 day workshop with international photographer Eddy van Wessel. He is training the group of 15 photographers on how to make better portrait photo's. The workshop takes place at the Azadi Panorama in Duhok, the General Directorate of Culture and Arts. The workshop will cover technical issues and lighting, but will mainly look at more creative ways to make a portrait photo.

International trainer Robert Slagt started on June 1, 2011 to train a group of magazine makers from Baghdad and other Arabic cities in Iraq. The training in the IMCK training hall in Erbil is modeled like the one he did for their Kurdish colleagues and takes 3 days.

International photographer Eddy van Wessel started a 3 day workshop on portrait photography in Baghdad. The training that started on June 1, 2011, was the first of its kind by IMCK in the Iraqi capital. The picture below (by Van Wessel) shows IMCK's project coordinator Mustafa Qais opening the training. Van Wessel will teach a group of eight Iraqi photographers how to make pictures that are technically better, and especially how to make portraits that show something about "the soul" of the person.