Panos Caribbean & Central America 2003

Child Rights . Public Health (in particular HIV/AIDS) . Environment . Gender and Social Justice . Archive Regional Training Courses

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2003 Caribbean Annual Report

In 2003, the 15-year old Caribbean and Central America (CariCA) programme implemented more activities in more countries of the region then ever before. In collaboration with the Caribbean Environmental Reporters Network (CERN), we rapidly expanded our environmental training, production and networking activities in the English speaking Caribbean. Panos also started several new initiatives in the Dominican Republic, in particular relating to HIV/AIDS. And in Haiti, we implemented once again a great number of events within our multi-faceted programmes on child rights and HIV/AIDS.

The Panos Caribbean and Central America Programme was launched in 1989. From 1998-2001, due to financial constraints, most of its activities were concentrated in Haiti, the poorest country of the Western Hemisphere, although productions were regularly disseminated in English, French, Kreyol and Spanish, to media and journalists across the entire region. Over these years, activities grew steadily in Haiti. In 2002 we were able to start a specific programme for the Eastern Caribbean sub-region, coordinated from Barbados.

One of the main activities this year in Haiti, was the preparation of a book "Haitian Communities through Children's Eyes", a project describing 92 communities by more than 3,000 children. Our support of three child journalist groups continued also: various courses on Internet & Communication, photography as well as a campaign on children's rights were held with them. In total, this year Panos organized 40 workshops as well as 16 large-scale community meetings in many parts of Haiti. We also continued our institutional support to journalistic networks, such as the Centre for Communication on HIV/AIDS (CECOSIDA) and the Association of Haitian Photographers (APH).

In collaboration with CERN, "Island Beat Radio," begun in 1997, was re-launched in February with a weekly edition of 5 minutes in English. The programme, produced by a regional team of reporters, is simultaneously broadcast by more then 25 radio stations in 18 countries. Regional training courses were conducted in Antigua and Barbuda (on radio production) and in Trinidad and Tobago (on the use of Geographic Information Systems in reporting).

In January, we helped CERN to convene a Steering Group Meeting, which set up the first Board of Directors of CERN.

We researched mechanisms to start an appropriate media and communication programme in the Dominican Republic. A first journalist training event was held in July in San Pedro de Macoris to improve reporting on HIV/AIDS, with the participation of resource persons from Haiti and the DR. The course also aimed at strengthening the Dominican Circle of Health Journalists (CIPESA).

Panos Haiti participated in the Pan-African Radio Festival - "Media and conflict", held in Bamako-Mali in November. Also, due to our experience in poor and logistically challenged parts of the Western hemisphere and delivery of media products in French, we investigated potential collaborative activities with West Africa, in particular in the areas of child rights and HIV/AIDS. Opportunities in this regard were explored with Panos West Africa, Plan International and the Nigeria Officer of Panos Washington, who worked in our Haiti office for a month.

A number of international press fellowships were conducted this year in the area of the environment. Nine journalists from seven Caribbean countries visited international events of relevance to the region, and provided reports for Island Beat. Moreover, our project development officer in Haiti reported on the Governing Council Meeting of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), held in February in Nairobi - Kenya.

Other international initiatives in which Panos officers participated include strategic planning meetings for an international health journalist initiative under the auspices of the Aspen Institute in the USA (Washington, DC, May) and the Annual Conference of the US Society of Environmental Journalists (New Orleans, September). As Panos Caribbean region, we also joined the Panos Council (a coordination mechanism for the various Panos Institutes), which met in Nepal in November. Further, we continued our participation in the Panos Global AIDS programme, based in Lusaka - Zambia.

Our website (www.panosinst.org) was completely redesigned this year, and reintroduced to the press at a press conference in Port-au-Prince in November. Panos continued the production of media support material - in four languages - in the form of reports, media briefings and feature articles. In particular, within the scope of various projects, we facilitated the production and dissemination of information produced by children.

In addition to our three thematic programmes on Child Rights, Public Health (in particular HIV/AIDS) and Environment, we started preparing two more: Freedom of the Press; and Gender and Social Justice. A first press briefing on Freedom of the Press in Haiti is underway.

We continued to collect oral testimonies of people marginalized in the development process, such as street children, children in domestic servitude and people affected by HIV/AIDS.

The logistical base of Panos Carica became much stronger this year. The Eastern Caribbean office in Barbados, which we share with CERN, doubled in space in early 2003. In September our Regional Headquarters in Port-au-Prince moved into much bigger premises where we now own all equipment. In the new Port-au-Prince offices, we host two other organizations: the Centre for Communications on HIV/AIDS (CECOSIDA) and the Haitian Movement for Rural Development (MHDR). Also in Jacmel, where we operate a resource and information centre, we continued sharing space with MHDR.

Preparations were made for opening new offices in Kingston - Jamaica (in 2004) and in Santo Domingo - Dominican Republic (probably in 2005). Panos staff or staff administered by Panos increased with two full-timers (in Port-au-Prince and Barbados) and several part-timers. As has been consistently the case over the last four years, our total expenditures (matched by income) grew again in 2003, with over 13%, to nearly US$317,000.

Selected Project Highlights:

Public Health (in particular HIV/AIDS):

"Building Capacity of Journalists in the Caribbean and Central America to Report on HIV/AIDS: a Focus on Haiti, Dominican Republic and the Bahamas." This project is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/Fogarty Center of the USA, and is implemented in collaboration with the GHESKIO Centres/Cornell University and the Centre for Communication on HIV/AIDS (CECOSIDA). It started in December 2001 with a focus on Haiti while in 2003 the Dominican Republic was added.

In 2002 the main activities had been: (a) production of a Manual/Reporting guide on HIV/AIDS in Haiti; (b) its introduction to the press in a series of training courses (a national seminar of four days, and subsequently eleven one-day seminars in provincial cities) with over 400 participating journalists; (c) a training seminar for people infected by HIV on journalistic communication (interview techniques), communication in counseling and in advocacy; (d) production of various other source materials (briefings, website and radio programmes).

During this second year, we worked to propagate the project's activities in a self-sustaining way and strengthen management by local organizations in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Among them, there is a lot of enthusiasm for media activities, but unfamiliarity about its scope and potential. Also, we encountered that important parts of the population are not served well by existing HIV/AIDS communication initiatives (particularly the Haitians living in the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas), and there is much to be desired in terms of the participation by people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in media activities.

In Haiti, we worked in particular with CECOSIDA, a national network of journalists and communicators, and the Association for National Solidarity (ASON), an association of people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. CECOSIDA continued its work on a media briefing, and the production of radio programmes. Additionally, a website has been developed for a "management turn-over" to CECOSIDA.

In the Dominican Republic, we organized a national journalist training workshop on HIV/AIDS in July 2003 (40 participants of which 8 from Haiti) in collaboration with the Circle of Health Journalists (CIPESA - Dominican Republic), the Haitian Association for National Solidarity (ASON) and CECOSIDA. CIPESA is a volunteer network, in existence since 1997, covering several parts of the country. We are in discussion with them on how to collaborate further on joint media training and support activities, specifically regarding a seminar on HIV/AIDS during an international journalist conference which CIPESA is planning; and support to a series of CIPESA reporting guidelines.

"Who's voice is heard? Agenda-Setting on HIV/AIDS policy in Haiti." In collaboration with the Panos' Global AIDS Programme, in December we started to interview stakeholders (women, PLWHA, youth, media and HIV/AIDS service organizations) regarding the theme "participation, ownership, accountability" as part of a series of four country studies. The resulting report will be published in May 2004.

Environment:

"Caribbean Environmental Communications Initiative (CECI)," a joint project with the Loyola University New Orleans / Center for Environmental Communications (LUCEC) and the Caribbean Environmental Reporters Network (CERN) started in 2002. It is supported by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) through its Caribbean Regional Programme based in Jamaica. The primary focus is the Eastern Caribbean region, but we make some outreach to other parts of the region and generate media productions in the four languages of Panos.

In February, CERN and Panos re-launched "Island Beat Radio," with a weekly edition of 5 minutes in English. The international series focuses on environment and development stories from Caribbean communities, in particular highlighting voices of unusual sources which may be marginalized in the development process. The programme, first begun in 1997, was interrupted in 1998 due to funding constraints. Now, Island Beat Radio, produced by a regional team of reporters, is simultaneously broadcast by more then 25 radio stations in 18 countries, and by late December was in its 40th edition.

Some radio programmes, broadcast around World Food Day in October, were supported by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

"Island Beat in Print", begun in 1999 by Panos as a four-lingual (English, French, Kreyol and Spanish) series of feature articles, was also relaunched together with CERN, in October. Through the CECI programme, many Eastern Caribbean stories are now being added to the series which before relied heavily on Haitian input. Several of the stories are transcribed from radio programmes. Till date, over 80 articles have been distributed through Island Beat in Print.

Regional environmental journalism training courses were conducted in Antigua and Barbuda (two courses in January and February on radio production) and Trinidad and Tobago (in October on the use of Geographic Information Systems in reporting) with a total participation of 50 reporters. The courses in Antigua included field trips and "rap sessions", question and answer sessions on local situations, with local environmentalists and community leaders.

A number of reporting fellowships were granted to journalists from Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Haiti, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago in order to attend conferences and events of regional significance and produce reports for Island Beat. They reported from the Third World Water Forum (Kyoto-Japan, March), the CARICOM Heads of Government meeting (Montego Bay, July), the Society for Environmental Journalist Conference (New Orleans, September), Green Expo (Barbados, October), Green Accord Meeting (Italy, October), and the Caribbean Media Exchange (Barbados, December).

Over the year, CERN increased tremendously its networking and dissemination functions among media professionals, in particular across the English-speaking Caribbean and Suriname. In addition to its institutional website (www.cernnet.net), a production website (www.islandbeat.org) was set up.

"Production and dissemination of series of weekly radio programmes on the Caribbean Regional Environmental Programme (CREP)." This project, funded by the European Union, is being implemented by CERN with Panos support. It started in October and provides for 60 weekly editions of Island Beat Radio. The radio programmes, reporting in particular on CREP amenity (demonstration) areas in 13 countries, will be produced in English, as well as in Sranan Tongo/Saramaccan (for broadcast in Suriname). A series of print articles (in the four Panos languages plus Dutch) will also be brought out.

Child Rights:

"Haitian communities through children's eyes." This entails the preparation and production of 92 community profiles from three departments in Haiti (Northeast, West and Southeast), each done by a group of 30 children. The project aims to provide basic community information from the perspective of children living in that community. The project started in October 2002 and is funded by Plan Haiti.

In each community, 30 children compiled information through local research in late 2002 and early 2003. Small groups of upto 5 children worked on various themes and the 30 children brought their experiences together in a local workshop (held between December 2002 and April 2003). After editing by Panos staff, in May and June the results were presented at community gatherings (where usually more than a hundred adults and children were in attendance) 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 the year, the results were being edited, to be published as a book and website in 2004.

"Our Own Voice!," a three-year project with Plan Haiti, was launched in March 2000 to give voice to children, their perspectives and their rights by promoting their effective participation in the media through story selection, training and media production activities. This project, which started with two child journalist groups while a third one was added in 2002, ended in June. An expanded follow-up project for 2003-2006 with a total of 9 child journalist groups was approved by Plan in September and was about to start by the end of the year.

In 2003, Panos continued to enable the three groups of child journalists in the Northeast and the West to produce radio magazines, feature articles and photographs. Training was conducted in photography (for 2 groups) and Internet utilization, in particular regarding exchanging information with other children through their own chat-room and searching information relating to child rights.

Panos published and disseminated two media briefings, on street children and violence, as well as a report on a journalistic training course on investigative reporting. As a bridge between the original project (March 2000 - June 2003) and the new one (December 2003 - June 2006), we are finalizing a special report on the adult-children media forums, conducted in 2002, and are redesigning the website.

"Campaigns on Children's Rights - by children, for children." Using the model of a campaign carried out in the Southeast (August - December 2002), with support of Plan Haiti, in February children in the West department of Haiti became engaged in their own campaign for increasing local awareness on child rights priorities, as identified by them. After initial training in survey techniques, the group of 20 children carried out a survey on knowledge and attitudes towards child rights by people in the communities of Croix-des-Bouquets. Subsequently, through a production seminar in April, messages were prepared for marketing. These messages, distributed in June through radio, banners, T-shirts and stickers, focused on health and the quality of life for children, education, the need to reduce abuse, exploitation and violence, the right to free expression by children, and HIV/AIDS prevention.

"Training of Journalists on the theme of Child Exploitation." This project on children in domestic servitude, was carried out in collaboration with the International Labour Organization (BIT/IPEC). In 2002, Panos had implemented five training courses: one two-day course at national level in Port-au-Prince (May) and four one-day courses in Hinche, St. Marc, Cayes and Cap Haitien (October-November). In 2003, the report was prepared and distributed to the 170 participants, as well as all media, and follow-up media reports on the issues covered were collected.

Main partners in Haiti:

• Association for National Solidarity (ASON)
• Association of Haitian Photographers (APH)
• Association of Youth Journalists of Croix-des-Bouquets (AJJCE)
• Centre for Communication on HIV/AIDS (CECOSIDA)
• GHESKIO Centres
• Group for Research and Action on the Freedom of the Press (GRALIP)
• Groupe Medialternatif (GM)
• Haitian Coalition for the defense of Child Rights (COHADDE)
• Haitian Movement for Rural Development (MHDR)
• International Labour Organization (ILO-BIT) / International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC)
• Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP)
• Ministry of Social Affairs (MAS)
• Plan Haiti
• Promoters of the Goal No-AIDS (POZ)
• Save the Children (Canada, UK, USA)
• Society for the Facilitation of Social Communication (SAKS)
• United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
• United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)
• Voice of the Child Journalists of Fort Liberte (VEJFOL)
• Youth Photographers Club of Jacmel (CLUJEPHJ)
• Many mass media all across Haiti.

Main partners in the region in 2003:

• Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM) - Trinidad and Tobago
• Caribbean Conservation Association (CCA) - Barbados
• Caribbean Environmental Reporters Network (CERN) - Barbados
• Caribbean Press Network (RECAP) - Guadeloupe/Haiti
• Caribbean Regional Environmental Programme (CREP) - Barbados
• Circle of Health Journalists (CIPESA) - Dominican Republic
• Commonwealth Liaison Unit (CLU) - Barbados
• Loyola University/Centre for Environmental Communication (LUCEC) - New Orleans, USA
• Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (REDOVIH+) - Dominican Republic
• Mass media across the region

Donors in 2003:

• European Union, Caribbean Regional Environmental Programme (EU/CREP) - Barbados
• Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) - Barbados
• International Labour Organization (ILO) - Haiti
• National Institutes of Health (NIH)/Fogarty Center - USA
• Plan Haiti
• USAID/Caribbean Regional Program - Jamaica

We also received gifts (donated salary and private donations) and generated some other revenues through the provision of services.

Staff:

Full-time:

Jan Voordouw Regional Director Caribbean and Central America (Based in Barbados)
Jean Claude Louis Director Haiti Programme (Based in Port-au-Prince)
Julius Gittens Programme Director, CERN (Based in Barbados)
Nicole Simeon Project Development Officer (Based in Port-au-Prince)
Ryan Gilkes CERN Programme Officer Island Beat (Full-time since September 2003, based in Barbados)
Simon Florival Messenger (Full-time since September 2003, based in Port-au-Prince)

Part-time:

Eveline Adonis Journalist Child Rights (Based in Jacmel)
Jean Jacques Augustin Photographer (Based in Port-au-Prince)
Ives Marie Chanel Editor Island Beat features (Based in Port-au-Prince)
Ronald Colbert Journalism Trainer / Consultant media briefings (Based in Port-au-Prince)
Patrique Lamour Journalist Child Rights (Based in Trou-du-Nord)
Hugo Merveille Journalist HIV/AIDS (Based in Port-au-Prince)
Anne Shroeder Consultant web site design (Based in Washington, DC)
Strauss Vedrine Logistics Officer / Director Jacmel Office (Based in Jacmel)
Ismene Zarifis Banking and Accounting Support Officer (Based in Washington, DC)

Additionally, in 2003 as in other years, many people were recruited for specific tasks and services.