Basic Journalism Skills Development Workshop for Women Mubarakpur, Bahawalpur District December 26 to 28, 2011

Mubarakpur. December28 (2011) Three days long  Basic Journalism Skill Development Training Workshop for Women  held with the collaboration of Rural Media Network Pakistan & Unesco at NGO Ever Green central office at Mubarakpur town in the vicinity of Bahawalpur district. It was attended by fifteen female members of education department, NGOs and house hold women while Ms Shazia Mazhar acted as coordinator of this workshop.  The basic aim of the training workshop was the capacity building of the deprived women of the rural area. The resource persons Nasir Hameed District Information Officer Multan, Nouman Masood Khan District Information Officer Bahawalur,Ms NajamunNisa Bukhari Coordinator RMNP for Ladies, Professor Shehzad Ahmed Khan,,Ms QuratulAin, Mazhar Rasheed and President RMNP Ehsan Ahmed Sehar  taught them the basic principles of journalistic writing and enhance their capacity to write and report in a professional way. The resource persons Nasir Hameed and Nouman Masood Khan delivered extensive lecture on Feature & Article writing.  The female participants took keen interest and highly motivated to learn their due rights and tried their best to polish their skills. Resource persons told the participants that article writing skill is important for thousands of educated women living in rural areas and small towns as they can write of their concern from offices and homes. They further informed that material for these articles is easily available around them. Unlike literary writing like poetry, short story writing, article writing is an acquired ability can be learnt and practiced by any one.

The trainers put their efforts to aware the participants about hidden violence against women and women rights. They focused to sensitize the rural women about their due rights in the society and inculcate the capability how to report the hidden violence through media and other government & non governmental agencies .The participants were provided with journalistic training manual and other allied material for their future concern .After that a brain storming and question answer session was held that kept the interest of the participants which followed by a practical exercise of article writing and trainers paid satisfaction over the efficiency of the class. The participant pinpointed in their features that early marriages, lack of educational institutions and cultural barriers are the main obstacles in the development of females in Mubarakpur and its adjoining areas.

President RMNP Ehsan Ahmed Sehar highlighted the issues of violence against women and stressed the need to address it at different levels of the society. He said that woman is the best companion of man. Woman is the best companion of man. Woman is a great gift of God in the shape of a mother, a sister, a wife and a daughter. He urged women to promote better patience in them to reduce the incidents of domestic violence. President RMNP opined that not only men, but women are also involved in violence incidents against women. Islam also teaches us equality with men and women. He said the reasons behind violence against women in our society are lack of education and unawareness about their rights. RMNP Chief said that in foreign countries, the reason behind low number of violence incidents include women are educated and know about their rights.

Guest of honour Dr Syeda Ujala Suhail in her speech lauded the role of  Unesco and RMNP for organizing training programme for women contributors in far-flung areas and hoped that it will remedy the glaring absence of women among the thousands of district correspondents. She stated that rural societies in Pakistan are highly segregated; lack of women means that the media does not properly cover a large segment of rural life. Dr Syeda Ujala hoped that beneficiaries of this training programme will highlight the women issues in regional and national media in near future. Later on she delivered certificates among 15 participant Shazia Mazhar, Ruqiya, Khanum, Nosheen Qadeer, Rehana Adrees, Seema Abdul Khaliq, Hala Sadaqt, Aliya Rasheed, Babara Sadar, Khushbakhat Alam, Saliha Ibrahim, Khizra Ahmed, Shabana Hafeez, Rafia Malik, Sadaf Rafique and Rizwana Hafeez.