INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE KURDISTAN

Ben Lando (left on the picture), who leads the Iraqi Oil Report website, came to Sulaymaniya as a guest trainer for two days in the workshop on reporting on oil issues that runs in the mediacentre. Lando is an international journalist who set up the website to report on issues related to oil in Iraq. He will be involved in network meetings that IMCK is organising in the coming months for the participants of the training.

International trainer James Gavin started on Sunday March 27, 2011 a special workshop in the Sulaymaniya training hall of IMCK. For seven days he will give Kurdish reporters more knowledge and background information on oil issues. Specials guests will be invited, like Bnar Salah who works for one of the oil companies active in Kurdistan (photo below, with trainer James Gavin). The training is meant to help Kurdish media to report in a better and more varied way about oil. Human stories that have a connection to oil in Iraq will get special attention. Gavin is a specialized journalist from Great Britain. The workshop is made possible with funding from the Open Society Institute.

IMCK director Judit Neurink participated on March 24 in Amman in the Iraq Donor Conference, organised by the Danish organisation International Media Support. Different donors for media and media-organisations discussed the present situation in Iraq and the consequences for the media, the needs of media and ways for the organisations to coordinate and cooperate. Other representatives in the meeting, apart those from IMCK and IMS, were from Open Society Institute, Unesco, the Swedish embassy in Baghdad, Internews, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Press Now and Irex.

International trainers Rommert Kruithof and Robert Baltus used the last days of their stay in Kurdistan to provide the students of IMCK's post graduate training Media bo Khalk with an introduction to radio. As the visit of the planned trainer had been posponed because of the unrest in the region, the two ex-radiomakers joined the MbK-students on March 2 and 3, 2011 to talk about making radio. The students were taught about eye witness reports on radio, and discussed how to make an hour of radio that is interesting for different groups.

Trainer Mirek Wodzik on February 26, 2011 finalized his series of one day workshops for assaish. Of the series of eight, three workshops were canceled because of the unrest in the region. IMCK hopes Wodzik can return to train more members of assaish on how to work with media, as the clashes between press and police of the past weeks have proven these workshops are needed. IMCK will also pass Wodziks advice to the heads of assaish on how to better prevent these incidents in the future.

International trainers Rommert Kruifhof and Robert Baltus came to Iraqi Kurdistan to work with the new team of the website Kirkuk Now on the development of the site. Kruithof will train the new reporters that had been employed since his last visit, Baltus will work on making the team more internet savy. He works as the Head of Social Media for NOS in the Netherlands, and will share his knowledge about making websites attractive for many groups of readers. The site will be launched in April, after a test phase of a month. It will bring independent and reliable news about Kirkuk in the languages of the town: Kurdish, Arabic and Turkmen. Rommert Kruithof will at the same time provide media training for some politicians and CEO's.

IMCK trainer Mirek Wodzik started on February 18, 2011 in Erbil on the second series of workshops for assaish (security police). After the first day, the training again felt the consequences of the unrest in Kurdistan, which led on February 17 to 7 dead protesters in Sulaymaniya. All Kurdish assaish staff was put on alert, in Erbil to guard buildings of the party and party officials. Wodzik trains assaish on how to work with media. The workshops will resume as soon as possible.