[ News - - Speech ]

MTRC holds Three-week Training Workshop on "Radio for Peace"

PESHAWAR: Media Training & Research Centre (MTRC), of the Department of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Peshawar, recently held a three-week workshop on "Radio for Peace" at the MTRC training hall from March 4-22, 2002.The workshop was jointly organized by Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC), Deutsche Welle Radio Training Centre (DWRTC), Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) and the MTRC, University of Peshawar.The course was designed to enable the participants to develop and produce attractive, innovative and needs-oriented radio magazine programmes. Seven radio producers from various PBC stations, three radio producers from Peshawar University Campus Radio, Four Afghan radio producers, one from partner organization SDNP/IUCN-The World Conservation Union and one staff member from the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), Islamabad Office, participated in the course.Four-member team from the DWRTC, included Barbara Skerith, Director, Heidi Walsh, Project Manager, Peter Kolakowski, Media Trainer and Gotz Burki, Sound Engineer, facilitated the course through lectures, discussions, exercises, role plays, visualization (meta plan technique) and practical production work. The main contents of the project were: concept and structure of radio magazine programmes, interactive approaches through audience participation, interview technique and Vox Pop, news reporting, reports and mini-documentaries, magazine moderation including writing and presenting, planning and production of pilot programmes. While addressing the inaugural ceremony of the course on Monday, March 4, at the Area Study Center, University of Peshawar, Provincial Minister for Education and Information Sayed Imtiaz Hussain Gailani, said that in the presence of latest tools of information Radio is still an effective tool of communication in the community. The minister said in developing countries like ours radio is being listened by a large number of people as compared to television, newspapers and internet services. He said that now when the world has reduced to a global village, it is impossible that one will be enjoying luxurious life and the other pestering in poverty. The minister cautioned that the worst type of nightmares, like the September 11, couldn't be avoided if we fail to talk to each other and help those who needed our support saying that had the miseries of the Afghans not been ignored, the situation there could have been controlled in the time. The Vice-Chancellor University of Peshawar Sayed Zulfaqar Hussain Gilani said the radio studio launched by the Department of Journalism & Mass Communication would provide healthy activities at the campus.The DWRTC, Director, Barbara Skerath in her address said that this workshop will be first of its kind which will provide a platform for the people of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Germany to learn from each others. She said that peace is the essence of life and radio can help eradicate the barriers of prejudice and misunderstanding by giving voice to the voiceless. She emphasized upon the importance of the private radio stations and hoped that these would offer more option to the people of Pakistan. She said that only liberal and competitive media market is the precondition and in this way the state owned radio could also improve its programmes quality. Barbara informed that DWRTC has also given training to the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC)'s staff several times at Islamabad. This is the very first workshop that it is arranged for Peshawar University Campus Studio and we will continue our association with the MTRC University of Peshawar in future, Barbara added. Resident Representative of the FES, Islamabad Office, Gunter Lehrke in his address referred to the socioeconomic and political conditions of Pakistan, and said that radio could play vital role in the development and uplift of the people of any social community. He informed that two percent of the society is reading newspaper while 90 per cent is listing radio. That's why; he said that radio is the cheapest source of communication. Earlier, Professor Dr. Shahjehan Syed, Chairman Department of Journalism and Mass Communication in his welcome address briefly explained the objective of the workshop. He said that the workshop was aimed at to train radio professionals in improving the quality of their work. This partnership between our department and the prestigious DW, FES and the PBC is the first of its kind in the history of the country and I feel proud to say that once again we are leading the nation towards a better future, he added.