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. 

Mondo activities April–June 2017

Work with General Audience

In April we met with all the partners of the SDG campaign "#hoolin" and the video competition winners were announced. After receiving the SDG-themed exhibition from the festival, we decided to make a re-print as the photos were quite damaged from weather and wear from the guerilla pop-up gallery.

A new exhibition was printed on more durable material and from the beginning of June it was shown in the public hall (used often also by policy-makers and NGO workers for events) of the local EU Commission Representation.

Diana, the main character of one of the films made during M4D also visited Latvia to participate in a screening arranged by Green Liberty.

A meeting with the advertising company Velvet was held to discuss the campaign to be held in autumn. Additionally, the World Village Festival was attended in Helsinki to get to know communication and dissemination activities of other NGOs.

Two guerilla actions were also held during spring: global topics quiz during Seto Folk and working with refugees living in Estonia to introduce Syrian and Palestinian dishes to the wider audience during the opening festivities of the Estonian Presidency 2017.

Work with Policy-Makers
To prepare for the policy-makers joint trip to Philippines (organised by PIN), we met with mr Rainer Vakra, a social democrat MP.
During these months, work also continued on preparing the roundtable and conference in September.

In the beginning of May, an inspiring event for general audience and policy makers was held near Mondo's office in Telliskivi – an education seminar called "Education Quality = Sustainable World?". The main topic of the event was global education in the framework of SDGs. Photos of the event can be seen here.
Panelists were given gifts of baskets woven by women in Ghana.

On the topic of SDG 4 (Quality and Global Education) a bulletin for policy makers was also edited and printed: http://www.mondo.org.ee/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/teataja_1_2017_veeb.pdf

For the beginning of Estonia's EU presidency, a second bulletin on EU development policies was also published for policy makers. The bulletin can be seen here: http://mondo.org.ee/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/mondo-arengupoliitika-teataja-el-eesistumine.pdf

In May, the Parliamentary Bureau asked for Mondo's input to send out an information e-mail to all the members of the Parliament celebrating the Parliament's African Day. We encouraged the Bureau to introduce the documentary films made by ERR as a part of M4D. The e-mail was sent to all members of the parliament.

Also in May, the representatives of The Commission's Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development (DG DEVCO) visited Mondo's office along with MFA officials:

Work with Journalists
After a public competetion, a journalist from Postimees (K. Meresma) was chosen to take part of the training to journalists arranged by VIKES. We also met with her to discuss possible future plans and activities after the training.
A journalist (A. Lobjakas) was selected to participate in the joint study trip to Afghanistan arranged by BAAG and the several meetings were held with him.

As a continuation of last year's training directed to journalists, this year we teamed together with the training section of Postimees to arrange an internal seminar for their employees. The seminar took place on the 25th of May under the title of "Press Freedom and Corruption". The main star of the event was Mexican journalist and media expert Elva Narcia, who has worked internationally from Norway and South Sudan to Afghanistan and Ethiopia. 7 journalists attended the discussion with Elva.

The last M4D grant competition was held for experienced journalists. We received 10 very thorough and interesting project ideas. The jury selected L. Tankler and I. Soopan as the winners. The duo proposed an interesting multimedia investigation of the issues social and sustainability issues in the delta of Mekong river in Vietnam.

BAAG activities in Jan-May 2017

 

Following our national roundtable on illicit economies in Afghanistan last December, we published a report of the event. The report, Understanding the Impact of Illicit Economies on Afghanistan's Development, contains an overview of discussions held by the APPG Afghanistan and the subsequent roundtable discussion, held in collaboration with Christian Aid and Global Witness. Contributions from experts David Mansfield, Stephen Carter, and Heaven Crowley highlighted the role illicit drug, extractives, and migration economies have on development in the country.

In February, we held our first national roundtable for the year entitled, ‘Aid in a conflict zone: can military and development objectives work together?’, in collaboration with the Afghanistan Studies Group (ASG) of King’s College London.  The panellists had a lively discussion about the lessons learned from past efforts to combine civil and military operations in Afghanistan and their views about what this ‘blurring of lines’ might mean for Afghanistan’s future.  A full report of the event will be published soon.

In April, BAAG met with EC and DEVCO policymakers in Brussels to provide input into the new EU Strategy for Afghanistan. Led by the European Network for NGOs in Afghanistan (ENNA), civil society raised points about the importance of taking on board local perspectives, peacebuilding at all levels, the importance of including and supporting Afghan CSOs, poverty reduction, family planning, the decreased funding for literacy programs, the issue of migration and the inadequate reintegration of returnees as well as anti-corruption, especially regarding extractive industries, on the one hand, and ordinary citizens as victims of corruption, on the other. The points were well received and we look forward to seeing how the meeting impacted the final version of the EU strategy.

In May, we along with our members met the new Afghan Ambassador to the UK, H.E. S. Tayeb Jawad, during which we discussed priority issues for the country including the importance of putting out positive stories about Afghanistan through our own respective communication outlets and the media. The Ambassador expressed interest in collaborating on such initiatives in the future as in his view, the most damaging messages are those which say ‘in Afghanistan, it doesn’t work’.

Planning for our Afghanistan journalist’s trip continues! It is shaping up to be an exciting trip an updated itinerary has been uploaded to the shared drive.

In the absence of a good picture of our activities so far, please accept this shot from talented Afghan photographer Najeeb Azad!

PIN activities January - April 2017

Bulletin – African dinosaurs

In April, PIN published a first issue of its regular bulletin. The issue’s main story focuses on the “African dinosaurs” – the longest ruling African leaders. The readers could find out who is ruling for decades and what are the social and economical impacts of one man's rule. Furthermore, we covered issues such as the Chinese development aid in Africa, which raises a lot of concerns; land grabbing in Papua New-Guinea or health care system in Kurdistan. In our survey, Czech ambassador to Nigeria Pavel Mikeš disproves a common belief that the current Czech-African diplomatic relationships are weak. 

Bulletins are sent to relevant decision makers, i.e. members of Czech national Parliament and Czech representatives in European Parliament, Ministries' officials and key development experts, scholars and NGO representatives.

Jama – documentary

While visiting Kenya last year, Jan Pazderka from Czech Tv shot a documentary about the state of education in Kenya which was aired in April 17, 2017. During his stay he met Jama, a Kenyan student, who could not have pursue his studies without the financial support from Andrea Volfová, Czech humanitarian and development worker. The documentary explores the reality of many gifted Kenyan students, who do not have enough financial resources for their studies.

PIN has started the collaboration with new media house DVTv in Ukraine

In March, the young reporter Filip Horký visited PIN’s mission in Ukraine where he had a chance to see the everyday life under ongoing conflict. The war in Eastern Ukraine affects public services, power, water and food supplies and thus many people depend on humanitarian aid delivery.  DVTv broadcast five stories from the front line:

• Life on the Ukrainian frontline, 10 months without water and electricity 
• We have lost everything, the interview with Olga 
• The oligarchs want the war tocontinue 
• Shooting, destroyed houses, localpeople searching for unexploded grenades 
• Czech people against NGOs? Theinterview with PIN’s managers in Ukraine  

Czech TV in Indonesia: Environmental protection

In March, Barbora Šámalová from Czech Tv travelled to Indonesia, where she visited Czech scientists and Czech NGOs’ workers, who are trying to rescue endangered animals from extinction. Big companies are gaining land to cultivate the oil palms that are used to manufacture cheap oil. Despite the demonstrations and global outrage the production of palm oil is steadily rising in the world and the rain forests in Indonesia continue to be burnt.  

• Czechs are saving rare monkeys
• Czech businesses in Bali
• Governer election in Jakarta
• Rescueing endangered species in Indonesia

Czech TV in DRC and Rwanda: Women’s rights and development aid

In April, Czech Tv reporter Jakub Nettl visited Rwanda and DR Congo. The reportages from Rwanda focused on the issues of women equality and country economic and social development. In DR Congo, the reportage about PIN's development projects and current political situation were broadcast in main news. 

Mondo activities January–March 2017

Planning and Implementation: Uganda Study Trip
In December 2016 the M4D steering group gave very positive feedback on the study trips conducted by VIKES. Additionally, it was discussed that the surplus budget from previous years could be used to conduct extra study trips. Mondo proposed to conduct a study trip to Uganda (as we had the experience from August 2016 of arranging a study trip for two young Estonian journalists and one competition winner) and the steering group agreed. In January, partners sent Mondo information about the journalists that would take part of the study trip from their countries. Three partners from NMSs (House of Europe from Lithuania, Green Liberty from Latvia and PMVRO from Slovakia) decided to participate in this action and as PIN from Czech Republic was unable to participate, it gave the opportunity for Green Liberty to choose two journalists to participate.

To prepare for the study trip, Mondo cooperated closely with VIKES to learn from their previous experiences in all practical matters, from budget to motivating the journalists to dig deeper in their preparation process. It was highly helpful that project partners had used Google Drive for previous study trips, as it gave easy access to valuable insights in the preparation process. Additionally the information stored in SurveyMonkey feedback surveys sent out to previous participants was of great help. In Kampala and also during preparation work, Esther Nakazzi – a Ugandan journalist and fixer – was of great help.

To help partners find the most suitable participants and prepare more efficiently, Mondo sent a selection of possible topics that could be covered in Uganda and a preparation timetable to partners. All preparation with partners and participants was done via e-mails, Skype meetings and again through Google Drive.

The participants from each country were the following:

• Dannar Leitmaa, Estonia. Journalist at Eesti Ekspress and Raadio 2. 
• Sandra Kropa, Latvia. Latvian Public Broadcasting Radio and TV journalist
• Goda Jurevičiūtė, Lithuania. Journalist at daily newspaper Lietuvos žinios.
• Anna Ūdre, Latvia. Freelance journalist, working with Delfi.lv.
• Pavol Štrba, Slovakia. Journalist at daily SME.

The study trip took place in the beginning of March (5.03–15.03). During the study trip, the group had the chance to visit the following organisations and places:

• Refugee Law Project, a Ugandan NGO working with refugee rights.
• Femrite, a publishing house and group of Ugandan writers (mostly female).
• AFIEGO (Africa Institute for Energy Governance​), an NGO working with energy issues and human rights.
• YARID (Young African Refugees for Integral Development​), an NGO working mostly with urban Congolese refugees and their rights.
• Hope North, a secondary school founded during the civil war by former child soldier Sam Okello to support communities escaping violence in the north. 
• Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement: field office of the OPM (Office of the Prime Minister), UNHCR field office, Health Centre Panyadoli III (coordinated by the Real Medicine Foundation).
• BRAC Uganda and it's activities in Bweyale. BRAC is an international NGO working closely with communities (through community health workers and other similar approaches) to empower the poor and alleviate poverty.
• Uganda Wildlife Autority's (UWA) field office in Murchison Falls National Park. Topics discussed ranged from poaching to working with the community and the effects of climate change.
• UNHCR Kampala Office.
• Outbox, a co-working space for Ugandan start-ups.
• Kampala Disabled Initiatives (KDI) sewing workshop.

The group also visited "Wakaliwood" – a low budget action film production in Wakaliga, Kampala. The contact with Wakaliwood was introduced by one of the participants, who also stayed two days longer in Uganda. That participant also had the possibility to visit:

• Chess class in Kampala School for the Physically Handicapped, headed by Robert Katende (coach of Phiona Mutesi, known from the Disney biopic "Queen of Katwe").
• SMUG, a local NGO working for the human rights of LGBTQ community members.

After the study trip, a survey was conducted among participants. The results were:

• Out of 4 of the participants gave maximum points (labelled as "Great success") to the study trip overall, 1 participant chose "Rather exceeded my expectations" as their rating. 
• All five noted that they would be highly likely to recommend the trip to a colleague.
• Most of the feedback from the participants was positive, a very tight schedule was noted as one of the downsides.

Other Journalist Study TripsFrom January to March, the following study trips also took place:

• A journalist and operator from the nature show "Osoon" visited Ghana.
• The grant receiver from December 2016 and a photographer visited Southeast Asia to portray issues connected to palm oil.

Discussions with the journalists after their study trips reflected that they learned many new things and were overall satisfied with the opportunity that M4D project had made possible.

Planning and Implementation: SDG Awareness Campaign
To raise awareness on the SDGs and generally on sustainable development, Mondo cooperated with several organisations in Estonia to create a joint campaign. The campaign was coordinated by Tallinn Music Week (TMW). Besides Mondo and TMW, the following organisations took part of the campaign:

• The Ministry of Environment
• Embassy of Sweden
• European Commission Representation in Estonia
• Environmental Investment Centre of Estonia
• The media company Eesti Meedia
• Nordea Bank
• The telecommunications company Telia

The campaign centred on Estonian singers and musicians who spoke about their ways of contributing to the SDGs. The campaign consisted of street posters, newspaper ads, radio ads, online activities (videos, banners, web portal hoolin.ee), a video competition for youth, and the displaying of an SDG-themed photo exhibition made of the photos taken by journalist participants of M4D project. Campaign ads were also reproduced in Russian. Sustainable development was also featured in materials produced for Tallinn Music Week (such as timetables, catalogues, etc) and in the media coverage of the festival.

• There were 50 posters in Tallinn during 27.03-02.04.2017. The visuals were seen at least once by 255,033 people. The newspaper ads had an estimated reach of 176,400 readers.
• Online banners were displayed 1,578,664 times and received 1228 clicks.
• 23 people took part of the video competition.
• The videos received 74,190 views in Facebook and Youtube.

Distribution of posters:

Additional activities
For activities coming up during the year, we had several planning meetings:

• Planning meetings about the upcoming conference on the topic of development and security.
• Planning meetings with ERR about future activities in 2017.
• Planning meeting for a thematic newspaper edition of Müürileht.

In January, Mondo produced SDG-themed sticky notes as a part of raising awareness about SDGs in Estonia.

Also, a youth event on the topic of SDGs and the UN was held in February. Youth from all over Estonia gathered in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss and listen to panelists on the topics of SDGs and the UN Security Council. 70 youths from 11 schools participated, 6 foreign diplomats residing in Estonia and 4 officials from the MFA and State Chancellery also took part.

 

Campaign "Choose if You Believe in Myths" launched

A ten week Facebook campaign Choose if You Believe in Myths was launched today.

Every Monday, the campaign will bring one of ten most widespread myths on development and development cooperation and invite the Facebook users to share their opinion on them by joining an anonymous survey.    

The posts published the following days will try to fight the myths by bringing facts, data and arguments in form of infographics, short stories from the field, newspaper articles and videos.