Lithuanian journalists and organisers got together for the introductory meeting

Prior to the training which is currently held in Helsinki (organised by VIKES, @vikesverkko), we – European House and Lithuanian NGDO Platform- gathered together with our project's journalists from Lithuania for introductory meeting.

Journalists from our media partners  - LRT, 15min.lt, lzinios.lt, vz.lt - introduced themselves to each other and our team of organisers did so as well. In Lithuania people very often know about each other, so it was no surprise many of us knew each other from before.

However, these short personal introductions revealed very good news - that the journalists are genuinely interested in development. Someone of them already have been to the trainings (Like of Minority RightsGroup), someone focus on gender equality issue and small and medium enterprises, someone have studied or worked in developing country, someone’s topic is sustainable development and etc.

We, development NGOs' practitioners, were glad to share Lithuanian NGO perspective as well as our knowledge on what is going on in development policies. For a while we discussed an issue of stereotypes in the media, negative news and tendency to victimize people of developing countries. Obviously, the project is very needed and timely.

The most interesting and challenging part was an attempt to define what countries to choose for the trips and sharing the ideas of topics and stories that could be told. The question was still left open.

Inspired we agreed to meet again after the training in Helsinki and to establish tradition of project's participants monthly working breakfast. 

TV Documentary Format Development Seminar

March 25th-26th, 2015
Estonian Public Broadcasting, Tallinn   

                                                                

 The scope of journalistic coverage has become more global than it was some 10 or 20 years ago. Journalists travel more and get to various countries. Some areas like development cooperation, development aid are still new for countries of New Europe. It is like having suddenly all news tastes of interesting meals available in various new restaurants. But it is not just food that could attract people. As life becomes better on the local level one can focus more on global issues. Scandinavians had better change to examine the world a bit longer than journalists in the Baltic’s or Eastern Europe. There has been longer tradition to discuss development issues. In so-called Soviet block the issue was very politicized and for journalists there was almost no opportunities to travel abroad.

In March Estonian Public Broadcasting hosted a format development seminar. Journalists from 5 countries took part. In the framework of European Year for Development it is planned to produce a set documentaries, all dedicated to development cooperation. One of the main objectives for the seminar was to discuss issues of journalistic coverage of development issues in detail, also threats and challenges related to specific production sphere.  The biggest portion of those documentaries will be produced by Estonian journalists, but there will be films from Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia. The main idea of the project is to make all documentaries available for all the participants of the project. Thus some coordination is needed, for example to guarantee that the most appropriate selection of development countries could be selected – one country per documentary.

It seems that television market works well as a global program market. Drama series and shows can be successfully delivered across boundaries for various audiences. Yet documentaries are often based on local traditions of journalism. It is hard to find treatment suitable for different countries. The seminar was a great opportunity to discuss what stories could be attractive for documentaries, which could be potential subjects and objects to cover. For modern TV production format is an effective tool to unify creative and journalistic production principles. Thus one of the ideas was to develop a joint format for documentaries produced by different journalists and also different countries.

During the seminar Maria Seppälä introduced some very practical issues of covering development cooperation. She has visited several regions of the world where interesting people and circumstances can be found. Still real working conditions for journalists are often harsh. Questions of daily survival and security should be taken seriously. Also ethical aspects of working on issues of development cooperation are often hard to handle. 

Marje Jurtšenko, the editor-in-chief of ETV2 knows well the international documentary market. She gave a rich overview of different documentary styles. 

House of Europe and Pagalba - Lithuanian partners of M4D

House of Europe 

In Lithuania the project will be implemented by House of Europe in close cooperation with the National NGDO Platform. We expect that it will help extend public discourse beyond Eastern Partnership countries and facilitate more sustainable discussions on developing countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Lithuanian journalists, engaged in the project, in particular upon their trips to several developing countries in Africa and Asia, will share their insights with the public on the sore issues there and interdependencies of global development. Exchange of expertise between project partners, especially with the Finnish Foundation for Media and Development (VIKES) and British & Irish Agencies Afghanistan Group (BAAG), also setting up international relationships between journalists both within Europe and globally, will be beneficial for Lithuanian media in shaping their views on development.

House of Europe is a non-profit organisation established in Vilnius, Lithuania, active since 1999. It has an extensive track record in developing and implementing projects related to different EU policies. Upon Lithuania’s accession to the EU in 2004 and becoming a donor country, House of Europe together with other civil society organisations initiated the establishment of the National Non-Governmental Development Organisations Platform, officially registered in 2007.  The head of the organization chaired the Platform till 2009 and facilitated setting up relationships with relevant stakeholders at national and the EU levels, including MFA, Ministry of Education and Science, Lithuanian MEPs, CONCORD and TRIALOG, as well as strengthening the capacities of member organisations. 

We aim to increase public understanding about EU policies in the fields of education, environment, social affairs and development cooperation, to promote and strengthen participative democracy and civic engagement of different societal groups, to establish collaboration between Lithuanian civil society and professional organizations and those in other European countries. We also network with national media, interest groups, public institutions, NGOs, etc.

The organisation specialises in non-formal education and public information and communication. Until now the focus of its activities in the field of development cooperation has been raising awareness of relevant stakeholders, in particular decision makers, media, NGOs and the youth, on development policy. To this end, we have organised several conferences, round tables, workshops, trainings and information campaigns. It has worked out the guidelines for development education and is currently working on the Framework Document on Global Education.

Lithuanian National Non-Governmental Development Cooperation Organisations’ Platform - Pagalba

National Non-Governmental Development Cooperation Organisations’ Platform (Lithuanian NGDO Platform) brings together 19 Lithuanian non-governmental organisations working in the field of development cooperation and education. Major areas of activity of our member organisations are promotion of democracy, social policy, education, equal opportunities, healthcare, childrens’ rights, food security and sustainable development.

The Platform, mostly known as Pagalba (meaning assistance in Lithuanian) seeks to:

•  increase public awareness on development cooperation issues;
•  shape and implement Lithuanian and EU development cooperation policies;
•  build an environment for Lithuanian NGOs to participate in international development cooperation;
•  represent the Platform at Lithuanian institution, EU and international organisations; 
• develop and strengthen the capacities of the NGDO Platform and its member organisations.

By the beginning of 2015 in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs we are organizing the informational and awareness raising campaign for the European Year for Development (EYD). Through a variety of activities and a wide network of partners we aim to increase the understanding of Lithuanian civil society of the importance and relevance of the national and the EU development cooperation policy. To this end, a number of activities will be undertaken targeting national media, decision makers, NGDOs and the youth, in particular publicizing in popular radio and TV programs, integration of development issues into the syllabuses of Lithuanian universities and colleges as well as teacher training photocontest and exhibitions in Lithuanian cities.

Our recent achievements are:

•  Advocacy of the interests of the civil society and inputs to the law of the Lithuanian Development
• Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid and its post-legislative acts.
• Advocacy on development cooperation during the Lithuanian Presidency at the EU Council
• Public discussions on  the effectiveness of aid for politicy makers, academicians and NGO
• representatives.
• Development of online database  for finding partners among Lithuanian non-governmental organisations in the fields of development cooperation and development education.
• Film screenings on international development at the human rights film festival Ad Hoc: Inconvenient Films public discussions in different Lithuanian cities.
• Drafting of recommendations for decision makers concerning the post – 2015 agenda and Policy
  Coherence for Development in cooperation with international NGDOs .
• Initiation of long-term and sustainable implementation of global education in both formal and non-formal education system in Lithuania, resulting in the Compact on Global Education currently underway

Find out more on www.pagalba.org/en/ and join us on Facebook  

We also stream the news of the main EYD channel on www.europa.eu/eyd2015/lt

Mondo's Activity Update: April '15

Spring is  arriving to Estonia (very slowly) and seems that since the end of this week we will have a government :-)  It has definitely been an interesting time in Estonian politics since the elections in March, but what have we been doing in Mondo?

• Before the elections, on the 12th of February we managed to invite all the well-known parties of Estonia to a political debate on development cooperation. The debate was open for public, with the audience mostly filled with students interested in international politics. After the debate, an informal pop-up cafeteria was held in Mondo's office in support for the refugees in Syria and Ukraine. This gave us a good chance to mingle with the politicians in an informal setting.
  
  If you want to practice your Estonian, you can watch the debate in full length here. All in all it was an interesting debate, but also showed us how much misinformation is in the air about development cooperation. This is an even bigger encouragement to get started on the bulletins for policy makers.
  
  The debate was led by Indrek Treufeldt from ERR and featured the following politicians:


• Marianne Mikko (Social Democrats)
• Marko Mihkelson (Pro Patria and Res Publica Union)
• Oudekki Loone (Middle Party)
• Andres Herkel (Free Party) 
• Kalle Palling (Reform Party) 
• Martin Helme (Conservative People's Party)
• Aleksander Laane (Green Party) 
• Kristiina Ojuland (People's Unity Party)
  
  
  
• We also met/skyped with journalists from Postimees, Maaleht, Eesti Ekspress, and Eesti Päevaleht.
• Johanna had a promising bump-in with a famous Estonian rock star at the independence day celebrations who showed interest in taking part of popularising development issues. He has not given his final agreement yet, so we are keeping our fingers crossed :-)
• We have also been planning and discussing for the Arvamusfestival (Opinion Festival) happening in summer, where several open-air debates and discussions take place during two days.
• In the beginning of March, we met with the new communication specialist from Arengukoostöö Ümarlaud (Estonian Roundtable for Development Cooperation) to introduce our project to her and hear about their plans. They are organising a yearly World Day on the 30th of May, which will give a good platform to introduce our project to a wider audience. As they are also printing a thematic newspaper insert prior to the event, we will be able to insert an article that will touch on EYD2015 and Mondo's activities in general.
• We have also met or e-mailed with a few advertising companies to talk about this year's public campaign. Some of the companies have been already giving us some good ideas, in April they will present their proposals so we will be able to select the best one and start developing the key messaging and symbols with them.
• Throughout the two months we have also been in tight contact with ERR, meeting some of the TV journalists and forwarding our contacts to them. We have also been advising Piret with the short TV clips that will be aired on ETV and also helping a bit with the seminar that took place in ERR.
• We have also been in good contact with the MFA, development cooperation desk officer Helen Ennok has given us really good advice and taken part of some of the events.