Giving Voice
IWPR’s mission to empower local voices is more important than ever
The How
IWPR has developed ground-breaking approaches that are highly effective at driving positive social change across the globe. Central to the Institute’s work is training and mentoring journalists and rights activists, improving their ability to identity and present factual information through professional research, reporting and production skills.
IWPR helps creative local talent establish and strengthen media outlets and civic groups, to provide vibrant local platforms so they achieve sustainable local impact.
IWPR partners with reporters, rights advocates and local groups to mobilise the power of information to tackle critical challenges from violent extremist hate speech, to women’s rights to disinformation and COVID-19 responses. All of this work is guided by IWPR extensive local networks, through hundreds of local partner media and civil society groups and tens of thousands of trained journalists, experts and activists who inform our responses and help ensure targeted and effective impact.
GIVING VOICE CASE STUDY #1
With information under threat from spiralling repression, hate speech, data breaches and physical attack, IWPR’s mission to empower local voices is more important than ever.
Covering Coronavirus in Cuba
IWPR’s network of reporters in Cuba are defying one of the most repressive media environments in the world to expose mass government disinformation over the Covid-19 crisis.
Our journalists have continued to report on how regime mismanagement and fake news continue to fuel the crisis, even though Cuba prides itself on having the best public health system in the region.
"These stories can be presented as the ultimate testimonies of the difficult times experienced by all Cubans."
IWPR contributor from Cuba
Cuba Is Running Out of Food
A lack of hard currency mean that essential imports are in short supply.
Cuba's Elderly Work Through the Pandemic
Low state pensions mean that older people risk exposure to the virus to make ends meet.
Cuba Gags Coronavirus Critics
Legislation used to intimidate those highlighting government mishandling of the emergency.
GIVING VOICE CASE STUDY #2
With 30 years’ experience, IWPR’s core work is to strengthen the flow of credible, unbiased information, enabling journalists and activists to inform, educate and mobilise communities.
Central Asia: Imams Turn Influencers
IWPR is training a new generation of social media influencers across Central Asia to spread tolerance and counter violent extremism.
Pioneers include Yusufhon Zakaria, a 38-year-old imam in Kyrgyzstan whose messages of co-existence and moderation have helped make him a YouTube and Instagram star across the region.
"I was able to persuade families that it was a good thing to give their girls an education."
Yusufhon Zakaria Kyrgyz imam
GIVING VOICE CASE STUDY #3
IWPR empowers societies to find their own solutions, by strengthening the capacity of media and civic groups to report on and advocate for accountability, freedom of expression and human rights.
Four Million Love Letters to Mosul
IWPR helped organise a mass airdrop of messages of solidarity from ordinary Iraqis to residents of Mosul suffering under Islamic State (IS) occupation.
For more than two years, residents of Iraq’s second largest city had lived in an information blackout, risking execution for watching TV, listening to the radio or using the internet. The airdrop provided them with tangible proof that there were millions of Iraqis outside Mosul sympathising with them – and hope for the future.
"We never heard of such thing during a war; usually airplanes drop bombs and [this] airplane is dropping love letters."
Iraqi citizen from Baghdad