Intermediate Journalism Training for the Young Women Journalists of Nepal

8-12 August 2011 (23 - 27 Saun 2067) Kusma, Parbat
National Media Development Center (NMDC) is a pioneer journalism training organization is Nepal. Since its establishment in Feburary 2007, it has provided THEME focused reporting skill development  training to 1043 the journalists working in the remote districts of Nepal.
Intermediate journalism training prioritized to young women reporter in the district is a part of the training supported by the U.S. Embassy in Nepal.

NMDC has successfully conducted Intermediate Journalism Training (IJT) in three places, by making higher number of young women journalist's participation than project plan. As per the plan to organize training in districts, it has completed the five day residential training in Panchthar-east, Doti-far-west and Parbat-mid-hill west, and the remaining one training will take place from 22-26 August at Dolkha. In three trainings, news reporting capacity of 66 young journalists had been enhanced. Among them 64 were women journalists.

This is the report of PARBAT training.
NMDC has organized a 5-day "Intermediate Journalism Training" to the young women journalists at Kusma, Parbat, west Nepal. Twenty-one young reporters including one male and 20 female working journalists actively participated in the training. The training was conducted from 8 to 12 August 2011. Out of 21 participants, 14 were from FM radio stations, 4 from print media, 1 from Television and 2 were fresh. The participants were from Shyangja-2, Parbat-14, Baglung-3 and Myagdi-2.

Media activity in district headquarter Kusma has been increased than years ago. This became possible after establishment of three FM radio stations and eight weekly newspapers and simultaneously, it attracted young people in journalism. The most attraction here is the Didibahini FM Radio Station wholly managed and operated by women. Bhola Sharma, a senior journalist informed that they are preparing to publish a tabloid daily. Together with the increase in media outlets, professionalism among the journalists and awareness level of the people is positively raising, he added. "Trainings were not provided. This five day training has helped very much to young journalists to enhance their news writing skill", Santosh Thapa, Secretary of FNJ said. Parbat, Shyangja, Baglung and Myagdi are gradually becoming media-active districts. Among them Baglung is vibrant in radio and print media. The main theme of this five day Intermediate Journalism Training is to sharpen the news collecting and reporting skills of the young reporters of Nepal.

The curriculum of the five day Intermediate Journalism Training (IJT) has been designed in the modality that even the fresh participants learn several news gathering and reporting tools, whereas it enhances the reporting capacity of the working journalists. Practical based curriculum has been designed making consultation with media experts, trainers and media specialist of the U.S. Embassy. Senior Nepali media trainers, practitioners including media experts from the Embassy were resource persons. The class presentation, class exercise, field visit, news writing, news presentation and immediate feedback had inspired the young reporters about the necessity of study and hard working to practice journalism.

Expressing about the training's achievement, Jhau Maya Hitang participant from Parbat said, "This is my first training and this has developed my confidence to write news.I will study more to continue journalism".

"It has not been long since I started journalism. I used to feel shy even to speak. After this training, I learned about source, how to reach at source and how to write news. I am feeling very happy", Indira Sharma, Parbat sharing her training experience said.

"The level of this training is very high. The content of the training are also very useful for me. It has encouraged me to move ahead. I'm inspired from this training and I'll also encourage to other friend to involve in journalism profession, Puja Malla from Myagdi said.
"This training has increased my confidence to make journalism as profession", Dilipashree Adhikari, Shyangja
" From this training, I learned how to write news, and how to find source. " Sita Pandey, Shyangja
"I used to write hard news. I was interested to write feature article and feature news but was unable. Now, after this training, I'm able to write feature news. I'll write.", Renu K.C. Baglung.

According to media representation 14 were from different FM Radio Stations, 4 from print media, 1 from TV and 2 were fresh.

The key objective of the five day training was to strengthen and enhance the capacity of young journalists giving priority to women.
NMDC had organized this training in coordination with Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ) Parbat Branch. In a brief inaugural session, Bed Bahadur Karki, Chief District Officer of Parbat district inaugurating the five day training shed light on the lack of professional journalism. The tendency of prioritizing to negative news should gradually be given less space, he proposed. Planning Officer of District Development Committee (DDC), and local journalists shed light on the importance of the training. Trainer Kishor Karki, NMDC President Bishnu P Sharma had informed the participants and guests on the objectives, contents and modalities of the training.
All participants actively participated in the five day training. Journalists openly discussed on the problem they faced and mistakes they committed during reporting. All trainees said that class exercise, opinion writing, news observation, field visit and news writing and presentation had helped them to sharpen their reporting skill and made them courageous. Their class and field visit for news writing assignment had justified it. The special presentation by Ms. Heather Steil and Mr. Arun Poudel on Social Networking media: The challenges of new media in journalism was major attraction for participants. They learned about the benefit and detriment, and verification problem of new media.
At the end of the training session, Local Development Officer (LDO), Narhari Baral had distributed training certificate to the participants. Vice-President of FNJ had chaired both inaugural and closing session.

Young women are found fascinated toward journalism across the country. Rise in the women's number in mid-hill districts joining in different media outlets along with running FM radio stations by women is admirable matter. Women participants at Parbat were also found motivated and committed in journalism. This training has become successful to add them energy and has succeeded to inspire them to accept journalism as profession. If we can conduct such programs in small but city-oriented districts, it would highly support to develop professional journalism and make the citizen aware and responsible.