INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE KURDISTAN

The third edition of IMCK's post graduate course Media bo Khalk/Media for People ended on Sunday June 17, 2012 with a ceremony at the Safeer Hotel in Erbil. The 22 participants of the course received their certificates out of the hands of Nawzad Hadi, the governor of Erbil, Sasan Awni of the KDP organisations bureau and Stephane Tellier of the French Cultural Centre. Governor Nawzad Hadi announced in his speech his support for the course, after IMCK directeur Judit Neurink explained how difficult it is to find the funding - while at the same time more than half of all the students of the different Media bo Khalk courses are now working in journalism. Of Media bo Khalk 3 already a number of the students found a job as a journalist with one of the Iraqi media outlets. Former minister of Anfal and Martyrs, Chnar Saad Abdullah, who now leads the KDP Organisations Bureau, talked about the importance of good media for parties in Iraq, while IMCK board member and former editor ...

At the IMCK offices three Kurdish journalists were awarded a prize for best stories on oil related issues. The Oil is Money Prize was the finale of the project IMCK did with Open Society Intitute to improve the knowledge of Kurdish journalists (and thus of Kurdish readers/viewers) on the subject. After the Oil workshop IMCK offered in March 2011, the participants were invited to keep posted on a special Facebook page, and to meet two times with trainer Ben Lando (of Iraqi Oil Report) and some experts. All participants were invited to send in stories for the Prize. The jury consisted of Asos Hardi (director of Awene Newspaper), Khaled Sulaiman (Editor in Chief of Haftana magazine), Ben Lando (Iraqi Oil Report) and Judit Neurink (director IMCK). They choose the three best stories out of a dozen that were sent in. The prize ceremony took place on July 31, 2011. The winner is Aran Sidia from Hawler Newspaper, with a story about the results of oil production for the environment. Se...

The workshops IMCK organized for the Sulaymania security police (Asaish) were cancelled until further notice due to safety precautions in the city. After two days Mirek Wodzik was able to resume his training. Wodzik will provide one-day workshops on how the police should work with media. During the 20 workshops in total, the trainer will discuss the role press, police and politicians in a democracy. Yahya Barzinji, Kurdish journalist, working for the independent newspaper Awena, will talk about the role of the journalists. Four workshops will be done in Sulaymania city, the rest of the days the trainer will go to different places of Sulaymania province, as Halabja, Rania and Kalar. Ten workshops will take place in Erbil. This training is funded by the Open Society Institute

International trainer for IMCK, Mirek Wodzik, started on January 30, 2011 on the first of a series of one day workshops for Kurdish security police, assaish. The workshops in Sulaymaniya and Erbil will focus on how to work with media in the now changed, peaceful environment. The workshops are the result of a pilot IMCK conducted with Kurdish assaish in the Summer of 2010. The project is funded by the Open Society Institute. Wodzik started the first workshop at assaish headquarters in Sulaymaniya. Due to a tense political situation under influence of the unrest in Egypt and a demonstration called for the day after in Sulaymaniya, the workshop was closed after only a morning session as all Kurdish police was put on alert. The project will resume as soon as possible.

Xidr Domle, experienced journalist and senoir trainer for IMCK, started on May 25 a four month training on text-editing at Hawlati newspaper. He will do this on-the-job project together with Mariwan Hama-Saeed, working for IWPR. The project in Sulaymaniya runs until September 2010. Hawlati is the oldest independent newspaper of Kurdistan, founded in 2001. To make the newspaper more professional Xidr and Mariwan will train the editors in how and why all text has to be edited, how to make leads and headlines and how to write good, unbiased stories. The training is funded by the Open Society Institute.