As part of the project supported by UN Women titled ‘ Strengthen collective capability of the media to implement gender responsive reporting’, Media Advocacy Group (MAG) organized a series of regional level trainings and a national level training for journalists aimed at building the capacities of journalists working in all media sectors to promote non-discriminatory and gender responsive reporting in media. The training focused on right based journalism including Gender responsive reporting in media.

The trainings were held to enhance the professional capacity of journalists in human right and gender sensitive reporting so that they could raise the issues related to human rights and gender more effectively. This in turn will contribute to foster gender responsive reporting in media.

Altogether 5 regional trainings and a national level training were held. Regional level trainings were organized in Biratnagar, Pokhara, Nepalgunj, Dhangadi and Dhanusha respectively and national level training was held in Lalitpur.

There was participation of altogether 185 journalists (117 male and 68 female journalists) from 27 districts of Nepal.

The trainings facilitated by Mr. Laxman Datt Pant and Ms. Babita Basnet covered theoretical sessions on understanding human rights; human rights based journalism, and media & gender sensitivity. The importance of media code of conduct, IFJ Declaration of principles in the Conduct of Journalist, the importance and effect of media in promoting gender sensitivity were also covered. The topics covered during training had both theoretical and practical sessions. During practical sessions, participants discussed about issues of gender based reporting in media – what has been covered frequently and what not, developed Public Service Announcements (PSAs) on Gender Equality and Social Welfare Advertisement to promote gender equality.

Both the theoretical and practical sessions helped the journalists gain knowledge on human rights based reporting including gender sensitive reporting. Moreover, they learned how to use international frameworks on gender to guide their reporting, focusing specially the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) which calls for media to take a greater role in promoting gender equality. The training also provided orientation on media code of conduct, basic journalism and news writing process. In a nutshell, the training was able to guide journalists to promote and implement gender responsive reporting in media which is the main objective of the project that MAG has undertaken with the collaborative support of UN Women.