Creating a Community of Learners
As students return to their studies, we highlight the IWPR Academy, our online learning portal.
Welcome to IWPR’s Frontline Update, your go-to source to hear from journalists and local voices at the front lines of conflict.
THE BIG PICTURE
This week, as students worldwide prepare to return to their studies, we highlight our own online learning resource, the IWPR Academy. IWPR’s primary work is to build the skills and capacity of local journalists, and the Academy is a free, secure platform for courses, webinars and reference material on everything from covering conflict and investigative journalism to data visualisation, verification and security.
VOICES FROM THE FRONTLINE
Along with region-specific modules, the site hosts a wealth of multilingual core skills training.
For instance, Newsrooms Countering Disinformation – available in seven languages – uses real-life examples from Moldova to Turkmenistan to explore how audiences are misled.
“While news consumers must be media literate, we think that in the first place, journalists have to be media literate, so that they are not influenced by propaganda” - Beka Bajelidze, IWPR Caucasus programme director
Elsewhere, the site also serves as a resource for handbooks in local languages on conflict and gender sensitive journalism in areas as diverse as Syria, Ukraine and Latin America.
The guides, from IWPR’s landmark Reporting for Change handbook to cutting-edge resources such as Cyber Resilience for Women’s Rights Organisations, aim to be accessible to all.
“We needed a learning tool that was tailored, engaging, user-friendly and relatable; one that could easily bridge the gap between the complexity and the importance of cybersecurity for women’s rights organisations” - Jennifer Kanaan, Regional communications manager for the Building Resilience in the Eastern Neighbourhood (BREN) project.
WHY IT MATTERS
Local journalists, rights defenders and civil society activists often face common challenges wherever they are in the world. Accessible and relatable resources are key to supporting their work; and a platform that functions as both an educational portal and an online lecture room helps create a community of learners.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The IWPR Academy, rooted in nearly three decades of work with communities in dozens of countries in conflict, crisis and transition, supports our core goals of promoting free expression, strengthening accountability and building inclusive societies.
