Online Journalism Training Workshop for Women 16 to 18 June 2009 Government Girls High School Ahmedpur East
Ahmedpur East (Rural Pakistan).June 19: At least 240 persons committed suicide while 1,615 incidents of violence against women were reported in South Punjab. This was disclosed in the concluding session of three days long Online Journalism Training Workshop for Women organised by Rural Media Network Pakistan(RMNP) with the collaboration of UNESCO in the premises of government Girls Model High School AhmedpurEast. Certificate giving ceremony was chaired by Principal Ms Syeda Najamun Nisa Bukhari while Executive District Officer Education (EDO) Bahawalpur Mohd Saleem Khan was the chief guest on this occasion. Addressing the ceremony EDO Education stated that an unfortunate aspect of Pakistani journalism is the lack of women journalists in rural areas and small towns while there were many distinguished women journalists in the cities, there are none in rural areas and small towns..He said that rural societies in Pakistan were highly segregated, lack of women journalists means tht media does not properly cover a large segment of rural life. He eulogized the services of Rural Media Network Pakistan(RMNP) for organising training events for rural women to remedy the glaring absence of women among thousands of rural journalists and also lauded the role of UNESCO for focussing rural areas in Pakistan in assisting media training. EDO Education Mohd Saleem Khan informed the participants that Internet use was increasing at an astounding rate. Some eight million Pakistanis in more than a thousand cities, towns and rural centres were connected to the internet. Similarly the print media of underdeveloped countries was not only publishing its online editions but also using the internet in the gathering and distribution of news .He hoped that media training with the assistance of UNESCO would enhance the skills and knowledge of women contributors in reporting basic human rights issues as well as related good governance practices by using internet. Principal Syeda NajamunNisa Bukhari in her presidential address hoped that UNESCO backed training would raise the awareness of female journalists on issues concerning rural communities and improve their skills to monitor human rights violations in far flung and impoverished areas. She stated that there were many women with master degrees in journalism but they were not given oportunities. Syeda Najamun Nisa Bukhari demanded that women should be encouraged to work either through emails from their homes. President RMNP Ehsan Ahmed Sehat told the
participants that RMNP-UNESCO training would build the capacity of women to speak out against negative media stereotyping of women and examine collectively current media handling of violence against women and to formulate alternatives. It would also raise a critical awareness amongst women at grassroots level. He informed that the total population of Bahawalpur division is 9229927 out of which 4309590 are male while 4920337 are female. Women percentage in Bahawalpur division is 53.30 as per latest survey he added. Giving the details President RMNP told that (3315610)67.39 percent women were residing in villages while (1604727)32.61 percent of women population was settled in urban areas of Bahawalpur division. He further told that approximately three lac women a total six percent of their population was serving in different spheres of life while their literacy rate is only 24.9 percent. He announced that Rural Media Network Pakistan would launch a training programme for 100 rural journalists in Balochistan with the assistance of Commonwealth Journalists Association in near future. Earlier …
Master trainer Ms Naila Batool,
Manager Russel Company Syed Qamaul Hassan,
District Manager National Commission for Human
Development Lodhran Syed Najamul Hassan,
Legal consultant Imtiazul Haq and
Moscow return IT expert Aun Mohd
… conducted training sessions and
imparted training to use the internet and in designing the action alerts for sending to national, local media and international organisations. Later on Executive District Officer Education Bahawalpur Mohd Saleem Khan gave certificates to women participants …
Ms Ruqia Noor
Mrs Najma Shafi
Ms Shahida Noor
Mrs Asma Anjum
Ms Salma Zia
Mrs Robina Akram
Ms Tooba Nadeem
Ms Asia Maqbool
Ms Irum Fatima and
Ms Nadia Noreen.
He also handed over books gift to Principal Syeda Najma Bukhari for School computer lab on the behalf of the Rural Media Network Pakistan.
4-Ahmedpur East(Rural Pakistan)President RMNP Ehsan Ahmed Sehar and EDO Education Bahawalpur MohdSaleem Khan standing with two male trainers of the Online Journalism Training Traininng Workshop.