Afghanistan: Oct' 07

Despite the end of the Ramadan fast and the Eid al-Fitr holiday, October was a very busy month for IWPR in Afghanistan. In all, the office produced 16 in-depth pieces, conducted three workshops, spent one week in Helmand and another in the north, in Mazar-e-Sharif and Kunduz.

Two of the workshops centred on a new project that IWPR hopes to launch within the next month - a new and truly independent weekly newspaper for Helmand.

At present, the province has only one weekly, called Helmand, which is run and largely controlled by the government. It contains an unhealthy amount of "protocol news" revolving around governor Asadullah Wafa and his endless rounds of meetings with tribal elders, PRT officials, and other government figures.

Many residents complain that the newspaper is boring and contains little real information.

A group of journalists who have been trained by IWPR over the past year have come up with the idea of a new newspaper, and IWPR is providing the training and technical expertise to make this happen.

Photographer Leslie Knott conducted a two-day workshop on news photography in Kabul, attended by five journalists from Lashkar Gah. The lessons learned were reinforced during a three-day newspaper workshop by designer Felix Kuehn, who worked with the group on the function of layout and design in developing a newspaper.

These are completely new concepts for journalists in Helmand, where the low level of literacy has dampened the development of a newspaper industry. Still, opinion-makers read the press, and the educated part of the population is hungry for real news from the province.

Over the next three months, IWPR will work with the newspaper group to develop mock-ups and a sample newspaper to show to potential sponsors. With luck, Helmand will have a new weekly newspaper by early in the new year.

The radio project is also progressing well.

Newly-arrived radio trainer Jared Ferrie worked with a group of six radio journalists to build on the success of IWPR's Helmand Voices project. A new round of stories has been produced, and will be available shortly on the IWPR website, as well as on radio stations in Helmand. Topics include: the rise in poppy production, as farmers prepare their fields for autumn planting; Helmand residents caught between the insurgents and the foreign forces; girls who cannot attend school for security reasons; musicians who can no longer earn a living because Helmandis are afraid that the Taleban will return; and the link between poor sanitation and disease in Lashkar Gah's garbage-strewn streets.

Journalists are now adept at identifying stories and developing sources; the PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Team) has told IWPR that the local media is beginning to have an appreciable effect on local governance.

The local administration is getting used to reporters asking probing, often difficult, questions. Officials are in turn becoming more adept at developing a message for the media, and working with journalists as partners rather than adversaries.

The week in Helmand which coincided with week three of the Ramadan fast, was a difficult one. The province is quite far south and still very warm during the day. With no food or water from sunup to sunset, journalists were not at their best. Nevertheless, they managed to produce several ground-breaking stories such as "Another Bumper Opium Year Looms for Helmand, "Crossing the Taleban Line" and "Helmand Drug Profits Fund Alms for the Poor".

These pieces give rare insight into the life of people in Helmand province, including their increasing dependency upon the Taleban. While foreign correspondents usually limit their coverage to an "us versus them" style, the boundaries between the insurgency and the local population is becoming more and more blurred as time goes by.

IWPR is one of the very few media organisations in a position to bring this kind of reporting to the attention of a wider readership, as well as giving the people of Helmand a chance to have their voices heard.