Green Liberty: Journalist individual trips - Global stories hunt

The first part of the third year of M4D for Green Liberty has been with a huge emphasis on planning and organizing journalist individual trips that we have named Global stories hunt. 

We have started organize the whole process as five events: 

1. journalist training, 
2. competition of applications for individual trips, 
3. networking and individual trip planning, 
4. individual trips, 
5. multimedia festival “Library of global stories” that would serve as a closing even of the project.

During these six months, we have succeeded to organize journalist training, competition of applications for individual trips, and networking and individual trip planning seminar. Also, we are in the process of planning individual trips that will be completed on October. 

Journalist training 

 On March 31, we organized journalist training Global stories hunt strategy development. The training attracted 20 journalists from several publishing houses: internet portals DELFI and TVNET, publishing house LILIT, TV broadcasts VIDES FAKTI and AIZLIEGTAIS PAŅĒMIENS, journal VESELĪBA, and others.  In the training participants discussed the meaning of development journalism, learned from colleagues about experience in developing countries, refreshed their experience in research journalism and connected their experience to UN sustainable development goals.

Participants pointed out that the most meaningful things in the training were: experience exchange, information about SDGs and M4D project, and building bridges between journalists and NGO activists.

Future events that would be interesting to journalists who participated in this training: discussions about global stories, workshops about SDGs and particular issues: eco products and green lifestyle. 

Also, the experience about how to integrate media in development storytelling, different campaigns and communication.

Info about the training in Latvian: Globālo stāstu medības - Ideju koprades seminārs

Journalist networking and individual trip planning seminar

Meeting with journalists whose applications for individual trips were accepted was on June 2, 2017. The aim of this meeting was to network and share plans of individual trips. 

The meeting started with getting to know each other and followed by a discussion about global stories hunt – individual trip plans. 

The invited participants who shared their plans were: Guna Gleizde, DELFI journalist and editor who is planning to go to Haiti;  Ieva Jurevica, LTV journalist who is planning to go to Tanzania and Zanzibar; Anta Blumberga, a journalist from mediahouse “Dienas žurnāli” and journal “Veselība” who is planning to go to Swaziland; Ģirts Strazdiņš and Sandijs Semjonovs, LTV journalists who are planning to go to Indonesia; Andris Kārkluvalks, DELFI journalist who is planning to go to Iraq (Kurdistan region).

After this introduction of plans, we had a conversation about formalities of individual trips, code of ethics, development journalism approach, and SDGs as the wider context for development.