Afghanistan: Mar ‘08
IWPR-trained reporter wins European journalism award for coverage of northern Afghanistan.
Afghanistan: Mar ‘08
IWPR-trained reporter wins European journalism award for coverage of northern Afghanistan.
Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, IWPR’s intrepid reporter in the north, won the Italian Journalists’ Association’s Journalist of the Year award. In early March, he traveled to Rome and then to Viareggio, where he accepted the award.
Yaqub’s fame has grown over the years he has worked with IWPR. He is one of the few journalists who have dared to report on the rise of warlordism in the north, and the abuses that local residents suffer at the hands of these powerful armed men. The case of his brother, Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh, who has been condemned to death by a court in Balkh, for allegedly downloading and distributing an article on women’s rights from the Internet, has also attracted world attention.
So Yaqub was in great demand during his European tour. He gave a speech to Reporters Sans Frontiéres in Paris; addressed an audience of several thousand in Brussels; and met a number of organisations in Amsterdam during an event-filled ten-day trip.
Elsewhere, IWPR reporters Aziz Ahmad Tassal, and Mohammad Ilyas Dayee, were selected for a training session on conflict reporting in London. For two weeks, the pair attended a course at the London School of Economics, toured the city, and visited media outlets.
They were very enthusiastic about the experience, which included a trip to the British Museum.
“We only got two hours there, but we could have done with two weeks,” said Dayee.
They visited the IWPR office where they briefed London staff on their work in Helmand and the problems and challenges of reporting in the region. They also discussed the impact of their work locally.
They came back with a renewed commitment to their craft and enhanced pride in their organisation.
“Everywhere we went, the media that everybody knew were the BBC and IWPR,” said Dayee.
IWPR in March was also short-listed for the Special Award for Development media, at the One World Media Awards. The Helmand project that IWPR has been implementing for the past 18 months impressed the jury with the strength of its output, and with the impact it has had on the media scene in Helmand.
Sadly, the Helmand project is now winding down, due to funding constraints. While we hope to generate renewed interest in reporting from the area, we are now in the process of downsizing.
