Today's news roundup is an overview of the themes recently covered by the Panos Institutes around the world.
Panos Southern Africa (PSAf), on top of covering the recent elections in Zambia (20th January) and celebrating World Radio Day (13 Frebruary), called for greater involvment from the media and investigative journalism on the issues of the prevalence of unsafe abortions in Zambia and of Child Marriage in Southern Africa.
On the subject of child marriage, Mamoletsane Khati, PSAf's Regional Programme Manager for Health and Development, says that "With funding from Plan International, PSAf is supporting journalists and media houses from Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe to develop in-depth content that would generate debate and inspire action to end child marriages."
On unsafe abortions, Lilian Kieffer, PSAf Executive Director, said that “unsafe abortions always take away the dignity of a person (and) are taking a lot of lives of women especially adolescent girls in our communities, and we can all play our part in saving lives by opening dialogue to find solutions. (...) That is why as an organisation, we promote training of editors and their journalists to responsibly report health issues by providing factual but ethical information as a way of according the public with receptive information that could be beneficial to them.”
On World radio Day, Panos Eastern Africa congratulated themselves on their 2014 Rural Radio Management Manual. The manual was developed as a basic guide for managers of rural and urban commercial radio stations in Uganda. PEA also highlighted their partnerships with local radio stations as a mean to ensure communities voices are heard, on subjects such as forest governance is Rwibaale, Uganda. Visit PEA's facebook page.
Panos Caribbean sent a delegation to attend the Lima Climate Talks this last december, and published a few articles on their Website to reflect upon it. Climate change continues to be a theme of profound importance for Panos Caribbean, which Twitter account is a go-to on updates about this pressing issue in Jamaica and the Caribbean.
Panos South Asia announced a new media fellowship opportunity, in partnership with the Swiss Development and Cooperation (SDC) agency, for encouraging dialogue and discussion on migrant labour issue among all concerned, including labourer, trade unions, and governments of labour-sending and labour-receiving countries.
Applicants should have a strong motivation for working on migrant labour issues in South Asia. Preference would be given to journalists who contribute to media outside their home country. Each journalist will have to file five stories and a small stipend for in-country research would be provided. All expenses related to travel and accommodation would be covered by PSA. Applications are extended until 26 February, and more details can be found here.
Panos Europe keeps the pressure up on the theme of fair treatment for migrants, training journalists and offering tools for medias to treat the subject with equity and dignity for those involved. They also called for the liberation of Bob Rugurika, director of Burundi's Radio RPA, imprisoned in January in a moved condemned by human rights organizations around the world, and released on bail on February 19, with strict conditions. Panos Europe invites you to listend to an inteview with Bob Rugurika that they produced in 2014, here on YouTube.
