SEPTEMBER
After the study trip to Uganda, a very interesting and relevant roundtable on SDG implementation was awaiting in Bratislava. Estonia was represented by Sigrid Solnik from the Estonian Roundtable for Development Cooperation, Kaili Terras from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Eili Lepik from the Government Office. All three took part of panel discussions and Ms Lepik also presented on the SDG implementation in Estonia. The roundtable was fruitful and a lot of great connections made. The steering group meeting after the roundtable was also great, with thorough discussions between the partners.
Parallel to the roundtable, Anette Parksepp was in Nepal as a part of a study trip arranged by VIKES. She is also one of the young journalists who participated in the spring training. Although there was difficulties for her to do her work because she was the only TV journalist, she still said in a later meeting that it was an incredible experience for her and great preparation for future work.
Her first clip also aired on TV news in September: http://uudised.err.ee/v/valismaa/04392847-af1b-42c7-b37b-33e83c51d941/nepali-maavarinas-kannatanud-pole-siiani-raha-ega-uusi-maju-saanud
Another activity in September was compiling this years’ newspaper insert. The topic of the insert this year was women’s rights across the globe and it introduced topic such as rights to education, political participation and entrepreneurial skills to a wider audience. The insert was published on the 17th of October between Eesti Päevaleht with a circulation of 17,330.
In September and October we had post-trip meetings with Piia Osula (Puuraid), Anette Parksepp, Laura Toomlaid, Madle Timm, and Rait Roop; also a pre-trip meeting with Jaanus Piirsalu and Raigo Pajula.
Some of their articles/clips from that time:
- http://uudised.err.ee/v/valismaa/0427e190-6eaa-4c71-9cd5-8eaf7aec57c8/err-nepalis-mullune-maavarin-on-jatnud-inimestele-tugevaid-tervisekahjustusi
- http://reisijuht.delfi.ee/news/reisijutud/tuhkatriinulood-kampala-slummidest?id=75910951
- http://pluss.postimees.ee/3889887/aralsk-ootab-koju-oma-sadat-kalalaeva
OCTOBER
In October, two screening events were also held. One was a screening for school and university students on the 17th of October, the film being “Sonita” – a documentary about an Afghan refugee in Iran who wants to become a rapper, but her mother wants to marry her off. In the end of the film, the director decides to secretly buy Sonita flight tickets to the USA where she could continue her studies. We invited four filmmakers for a discussion after the film to talk about the role of the documentary maker – if they can be activists also, or should they avoid influencing their’ subjects’ lives. Riho Västrik, a filmmaker and journalist moderated the conversation; other participants were filmmakers Marje Jurtšenko, Peeter Vihma, and Marianna Kaat. Although the students were rather shy and did not dare to ask too many questions from the panellists, the teachers in the audience immediately had interest in renting the film to show in their school for a larger audience.
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| Screening of "Sonita" and discussion with documentary makers in the Baltic Film and Media School (Tallinn University). |
The second screening on the 31st of October was a public premiere for the M4D documentaries made by ERR’s journalists. The two films shown at the screening were Meelis Süld’s and Kalle Käesel’s “Eesti küla Ghanas” and Kristo Elias’ and Mihkel Ulk’s “Turu majandus”. Anna Gavronski (author of “Sädemete jõed”) moderated the evening and a discussion with the audience was also held. Around 50 people attended. See the photo gallery of the event here: http://etv.err.ee/v/dokumentaalfilmid/meie_maailm/uudised/96df0a6e-4eba-46ee-98af-624f012c255d/galerii-dokumentaalsarja-meie-maailm-eellinastus
In October we also had the chance of giving M4D handicraft baskets to policy makers and experts who took part of the “Women in Politics” international seminar in October. The seminar aimed at looking at women’s political involvement on a global level and how we could support the political aspirations of women in developing countries.
Panelists and participants who received gift baskets: moderator Kadi Viik (Expert on Equal Treatment at the Estonian Human Rights Centre), Helen Biin (Labour & Social Policy Analyst at Praxis, Estonian Socio-Economic Research Centre), Maryan Abdulkarim (Founding member of the new feminist party in Finland), Hanna Rummelhoff (Member of JURK, organization specializing in providing legal aid to women in Norway), Eva Biaudet (Finnish MP, Chairperson of Political Parties of Finland for Democracy – Demo Finland), Birgitta Ohlsson (Swedish MP, former Minister of EU Affairs), Alexandra Rosén (Senior Director, The Women in Parliaments Global Forum), Daniel E. Schaer (Estonian Ambassador to Macedonia), Keit Pentus-Rosimannus (Estonian MP, Foreign Affairs Committee of the Riigikogu), Birgit Keerd-Leppik (Advisor at the the Estonian Parliament's Commission of Foreign Affairs).
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| Panelists receiving their gift baskets. From right: moderator Kadi Viik (Expert on Equal Treatment at the Estonian Human Rights Centre), Helen Biin (Labour & Social Policy Analyst at Praxis, Estonian Socio-Economic Research Centre), Maryan Abdulkarim (Founding member of the new feminist party in Finland), Hanna Rummelhoff (Member of JURK, organization specializing in providing legal aid to women in Norway). |
NOVEMBER
In November Johanna took part of the group trip arranged by VIKES to Red Nose Day in Finland. Lot of great insight and contacts were made and hopefully the TV producers and journalists who participated will be able to use them in their future projects.
We also produced a new type of publication – namely wall posters on SDGs. The posters were developed to reflect real-life situations of the Sustainable Development Goals. Each poster had a photo and a short introduction about the SDG. An interactive element was added with a QR-code square that leads the audience to an online quiz in the global education portal Maailmakool.ee. The poster sets will be distributed to schools to inform young people about the SDGs and encourage them to make their own contribution to the achievement of these goals.
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| Wall posters on SDGs for schools – each goal is explained with a picture, a story and a QR-code that leads to a relevant online exercise. |
A meeting-brainstorm in Mondo was arranged to plan future advocacy activities for the year 2017 in M4D project. On the 23rd of November, an advocacy mapping exercise was done and possible future activities brainstormed. An activity strategy will be based on this meeting. Related to this, we started preparing a thank-you note for policy makers and politicians who have been active in development cooperation issues. The note will be sent along a small package, consisting of a basket from Ghana, some Fair Trade chocolate and an organic non-alcoholic Christmas glögg.
On the 26th of November, Mondo arranged a youth seminar on social media and migration issues. A social campaign expert from Finland (Arto Sivonen from one of the best-known agencies in Finland – Måndag) spoke to the youths about how to plan and execute really successful campaigns and the youth had the chance to try out their ideas – after a session of brainstorming, each group presented a possible social campaign and Arto gave feedback to their ideas.
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| One group's presentation about a social media campaign idea called "We are all immigrants". |
In November, some articles were still published from the journalist's grant trip to the Aral sea:
DECEMBER
http://reis.postimees.ee/3898257/kalale-araali-merele-saaki-tuleb-nagu-muda
http://maailm.postimees.ee/3857215/jaanus-piirsalu-kesk-aasia-blogi-araali-mere-aeaeres
http://maailm.postimees.ee/3857215/jaanus-piirsalu-kesk-aasia-blogi-araali-mere-aeaeres
DECEMBER
To celebrate the end of the year holidays and say thank you to the policy makers who have been involved in development cooperation issues, we decided to compile a thank-you basket set for all the "world changers". The basket sets were slightly different depending on the recipient, but generally composed of: handicraft basket from Ghana, Mondo's 2017 calendar that lists all the SDG's and gives some background information about them for each month, the newest Mondo Arengupoliitika Teataja, a personalised card, a non-alcoholic organic glögg made in Estonia and tools made from fair trade chocolate by Chocolala – Estonia's only fair trade chocolate shop. We tried to combine the items in a way that would symbolise SDGs – a need for equality and sustainability both globally and locally.
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| Year-end SDG baskets :-) |
In December, Mondo also held the penultimate grant competition for journalists. We received 7 very interesting proposals and the jury chose the winner based on a very interesting topic – the journalist aims to investigate the effects of palm oil plantations to biodiversity and development issues in Indonesia. The first meeting with the winner will take place in the beginning of January.
As two-thirds of the project is over, a lot of very interesting articles have been published in Estonian media thanks to the study trip and grant possibilities of Media4Development. Also all of the TV journalists from ERR are now ready with all the films and they have been broadcasted on the main national channel. Along with the articles and films, a lot of great photographs from all over the world have been made by the journalists. So we decided to have an additional activity that was not planned in the beginning of the project, but now seems like an excellent idea – we are now composing an exhibition of the photos taken on M4D study trips based on the 17 sustainable development goals. The photos and stories will be sent to print in the end of the year and hopefully by mid-January we will have an excellent exhibition in our hands that could be exhibited in schools, ministries or other places also during the Estonian Presidency.
As two-thirds of the project is over, a lot of very interesting articles have been published in Estonian media thanks to the study trip and grant possibilities of Media4Development. Also all of the TV journalists from ERR are now ready with all the films and they have been broadcasted on the main national channel. Along with the articles and films, a lot of great photographs from all over the world have been made by the journalists. So we decided to have an additional activity that was not planned in the beginning of the project, but now seems like an excellent idea – we are now composing an exhibition of the photos taken on M4D study trips based on the 17 sustainable development goals. The photos and stories will be sent to print in the end of the year and hopefully by mid-January we will have an excellent exhibition in our hands that could be exhibited in schools, ministries or other places also during the Estonian Presidency.
Another extra activity will be in the coming year – Mondo will arrange a joint trip to Uganda, as many partners still have the possibility to send journalists but lack the local contacts. To make use of the cooperation and knowledge-sharing between partners, Mondo proposed to take the know-how gained from VIKES and arrange a small group trip to Uganda in March. In December we started to do some planning and contact our partners to look for possible fixers and topics to investigate.
One thing that was postponed in December was the social media campaign – we had actually finished the filming already some time ago but it was necessary to film one clip again as the light had somehow ruined the quality of the clip. The clips will thus be posted on social media in mid-January.
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