2004 Annual Report Panos Institute - Caribbean
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Project Highlights: Child
rights
"Journalism in Emergency Situations in Haiti."
With financial support of UNICEF and in collaboration with the Haitian
Government Office on Civil Protection (BPC) and Groupe Medialternatif,
Panos organized an intensive training course on the reporting of
natural and humanitarian disasters. Both these situations, and aspects
around it, affect children in particular, as well as other more
vulnerable groups in society such as women or older people. The
environment, education, public health, protection of human rights,
destruction of infrastructure (potable water, sewage, etc), public
transport, food aid, migration, violence, trauma, etc, all are aspects
of emergency management and disaster preparedness and prevention
where the special needs of children should be reported.
The training course was held from 10-12 March 2004, immediately
following a change in political regime, and therefore during an
extremely chaotic period in Haiti. Much violence and civil unrest
had occurred in the months leading up to the day that President
Aristide left the country (29th of February), nearly all foreign
aid workers had been evacuated in the 3 weeks before the course
(only to return by late April/early May), and foreign forces from
the USA and France were moving in.
In spite of this difficult situation, the course was well-attended
by 19 journalists from many different areas in the country. They
were informed on specific emergency services by representatives
of national institutions, the UN system, as well as organizations
specialized in dealing with humanitarian disasters. The group discussions
and journalistic exercises focused on the actual context of political
change, uncertainty of the future, humanitarian disaster and difficulties.
Many story ideas emerged, supported by solid information given by
a variety of agencies. Additionally, the professional role of journalists
within the present situation, as well as ethical principles, were
discussed intensively especially in relation to the interviewing
of children.
This timely course was well reported in the media. We also widely
distributed the printed report of the course to Haitian media, in
order to support investigative journalism, particularly in relation
to humanitarian disasters.
"Haitian communities through children's eyes."
Nearly 3,000 children, in three departments of Haiti (Northeast,
West and Southeast), prepared and produced a total of 92 community
profiles. These provide basic community information from the perspective
of children living in that community. The project started in October
2002. Although the collection, preparation and editing of information
was funded by Plan Haiti, an extra contribution from Sida was obtained
to finalize the publication of the book (in French and Kreyol),
as well as a website with an English language summary.
In each community, 30 children compiled the information through
local research in late 2002 and early 2003. Small sub-groups (up
to 5 children) worked on various themes and in early 2003 the experiences
were brought together through local workshops. After editing by
Panos staff, in May and June 2003 the results were presented at
16 large-scale community gatherings (each with an attendance of
at least one hundred adults and children) in order to obtain feed-back,
control the accuracy of the information, and, in general, demonstrate
the capacity of children to generate their own information.
At the end of 2004, the outputs were being printed in a series
of three booklets (for the Northeast, West and Southeast). Distribution
of the 800 sets of 3 booklets in the communities covered and institutions
is foreseen for March 2005. We will make the entire text available
on the web in French, with partial translations into Kreyol and
English. Several summaries in English will be provided for ease
of access and understanding.
"Children and Media," projects which give
voice to children, their perspectives and their rights by promoting
their effective participation in the media, were sponsored this
year by Plan Haiti and Catholic Relief Services (CRS).
A new project with Plan Haiti started in early 2004
after some delays. The project, which will in principle last until
mid-2006, aims to develop and consolidate self-governing child journalist
groups in three of Haiti's provinces. It was temporarily suspended
in August, due to administrative reasons of Plan. It was restarted
in December.
The project builds capacity in child journalist groups, as well
as their working partnerships with local media, to conduct their
own training, media production, community outreach and other activities.
The project follows up on our earlier project (2000-2003), in which
we intensively trained three groups of child journalists. In this
phase, Panos assists 9 child journalist groups in the Northeast,
Southeast and West departments, each of approximately 20 children.
In order to achieve close rapport with each group, in each department,
a locally-based Panos journalist stays in weekly contact with the
groups and develops and coordinates with them the specific activities.
These journalists also support the variety of media production activities
and monitors the quality of the outputs.
In early 2004, in each locality where a child journalist group
is located, Panos contacted the local media (in particular radio)
to solicit their support, in particular through making their facilities
available for training and production, as well as for broadcasting
the media productions.
A training programme was started for all groups, covering journalistic
writing, radio production, photography/video, theatre (as a means
of communicating messages) and income generation (to support the
sustainability of a group). The three groups which were created
and trained before, received training at a higher level than the
new groups. Journalistic writing courses were held in April (6 groups,
2 days each) and July (3 groups, 2 days each). In addition to theory,
each course included practice interviews.
In April, photography training was planned together with the groups
in the South-east, in collaboration with the Club of Youth Photo-Journalists
(CLUJJP), an association which was formed in 2003, in follow-up
to Panos activities.
We started radio training in the Southeast in June, in the West
in July and all groups were covered by August. Each group received
training for 2 months (4 hours every week for each group) at either
Radio/Tele Express (Jacmel), Radio Nationale & Radio Ibo (Port-au-Prince)
and Radio Gamma (Northeast). The productions by the children are
promising and the various stations have given air time. The newspaper
Le Nouvelliste also published in July an article based on interviews
with course participants.
Workshops on dramatic art and the use of theatre in social communication
were held in July for three groups, one each in each zone.
The project also aims to create mentorships between youth and adult
reporters. We held three training courses of 2 days each for adult
journalists to encourage them to include reports by children in
their radio programming and provide tools for producing quality
reports on child rights and related issues. Two courses were conducted
in May, respectively in Trou-du-Nord (with a participation of 25
reporters from the Northeast) and in Jacmel (35 media workers from
the Southeast). The workshop for the West was held in July in Port-au-Prince
with 40 participants.
In July, we organized a first exchange visit over a period of 3
days, with two groups from the Southeast (44 youth in total) visiting
the groups in Croix-des-Bouquets (West). A joint trip was made to
Fond Parisien. The children stayed at SOS Village and also visited
the print media Le Nouvelliste and Le Matin, the radio stations
Radio Nationale and Radio Ibo. Further a visit was paid to the Institute
for the social well-being of children (IBESR) and the youth lunched
together with the participants of the adult journalist course for
the West.
Also in July, the well-established groups from Trou-du-Nord and
Fort Liberte visited the new group in Ouanaminthe during the local
patron festival.
The Panos Haiti Director visited Togo in April, under sponsorship
of Plan Togo, to share the Panos Haiti experience and assist in
the development of a relevant children and media project in Togo.
At the time, Plan already conducted a variety of communication activities
which needed to be harmonized and integrated into a framework. As
one component, internet chats between children in Benin, Togo and
Haiti are being prepared.
In August, with the sponsorship of Catholic Relief Services
(CRS), we started a child journalist group in Pilate, North
department. The specific objective is to increase awareness and
promote appropriate behaviour of children and youth to prevent the
spread of HIV/AIDS and the trafficking of children. Poverty in the
region and illegal immigration to the Dominican Republic have forced
many families to send their children to the neighbouring country.
Twenty children between 12 and 18 years old received training and
guidance from health and media specialists, as well as some equipment.
The group produced a series of 12 radio shows on HIV/AIDS, human
rights and the trafficking of children issues, which were broadcast
on a weekly basis by Radio Echo (Pilate) and Radio Vwa Pep La (Plaisance).
The best contents have been transcribed and made available to Haitian
media in a special edition (4,000 copies) of the newsletter of the
national organization Promoters of the Goal No-AIDS (POZ).
"Global Movement for Children (MME)". The
campaign "Say Yes for Children" started in April 2001
at the international level, as well as in Haiti. Panos participates
in a coalition of more than 20 Haitian NGOs and governmental entities,
and is in charge of the media work of this campaign (training courses
for journalists, production of media briefings, press conferences,
distribution of articles and radio spots, etc.). In collaboration
with UNICEF, meetings were held this year, to plan the next phase
of this campaign, to take place in 2005.
Body of
Annual Report 2004
Other Project Highlights 2004:
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