Bosnia: Future Journalists Tackle Transitional Justice
New round of IWPR training and production to generate TV, radio and print content.
Bosnia: Future Journalists Tackle Transitional Justice
New round of IWPR training and production to generate TV, radio and print content.
A group of aspiring journalists in Bosnia will spend the next ten months producing dozens of stories for print and radio, and will help create six TV documentaries which will be aired across the region.
Participants attended a November 10-12 workshop in Sarajevo, which was run by IWPR and its local partners to give them a grounding in transitional justice and human rights, and equip them with the skills to report objectively on these issues.
The event formed part of the second phase of the Tales of Transition project, which IWPR launched in 2011 in cooperation with the Sarajevo Centre for Contemporary Art and Student eFM Radio.
One of the trainees, Melisa Delic, was particularly excited by the film-making and photography sessions that formed part of the training workshop.
“I will work hard to deliver the best output possible,” she said.
Edib Bajrovic, who works at a local radio station in Sarajevo, said he too hoped to build on the workshop over the next ten months.
“We’re talking about new formats, concepts and techniques, and about some really great stories that we'll try to produce in the near future,” he said.
Phase two of the Tales of Transition project is being funded by the Norwegian Embassy in Sarajevo.
In the first phase, which was funded by the Netherlands government, trainees produced 12 in-depth stories that appeared on IWPR's website and were republished by the media across the Balkans, and 30 radio reports which were broadcast on Student eFM Radio and Radio Free Europe. They also helped produce six 30-minute TV documentaries which were broadcast on Bosnian state television and are now being shown on Al Jazeera Balkans to an audience of six to eight million. (See Bosnia Films Screened by Al Jazeera.)
One of the trainers at this year's workshop was Mirza Ajnadzic, who had attended the first cycle as a trainee himself.
“It turns out that the young people participating in the Tales of Transition project this year are very interested in the subjects we are covering. Their reasons for taking part vary – some them want to become qualified journalists and reporters, while others already have some journalistic experience and want to expand their horizons and learn some new skills,” Ajnadzic said. “I’m really impressed with their critical thinking and the way they analyse problems facing our society.”
Ajdin Kamber is an IWPR-trained reporter in Sarajevo. He attended the first phase of Tales of Transition as a trainee.
