2 March, 2010

Petition against Uganda’s anti-gay bill – audio

Posted by worldservicetrust under Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , |
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Our colleagues over at the BBC Africa Service did an interview yesterday with the Anglican priest, Canon Gideon Byamugisha, who’s leading the campaign opposing Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill. His online petition has over 450,000 signatures from people around the world and yesterday it went to parliament.

However BBC East Africa correspondent Will Ross, says the fact that the vast majority of the signatures were from outside Uganda is significant, as the MPs would be more likely to take notice of Ugandan rather than international opposition to the bill.

For more on this issue, have a look at Rachael Borlase’s excellent article on the issues of reporting gay rights in Uganda’s rural media.

 

9 December, 2009

Things that matter

Posted by worldservicetrust under Enhancing Nigeria's Response to HIV and Aids | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Enhancing Nigeria’s Response to HIV and Aids (ENR) is the BBC World Service Trust’s new Pan-Nigerian, DFID-funded project which will focus on lowering the prevalence of HIV in the country.

An aspect of this is to help capacity building at national and state TV stations. This involves creating a TV training team which will then go out and provide training at local stations, including training on HIV reporting and co-producing with the station for several weeks.

Ambika Samarthya, an international trainer based in Abuja reports on the first stages of the three year project.

* * *

After the feedback we received from the research and internal reviews of our two original TV pilots, I began training Devaan and Nasiru in the techniques and styles of documentary TV production.

Documentary TV is not necessarily news, but real-life stories told through people who are not actors: character-driven, real life narratives. It is not only the direction where our templates were headed, but what audiences globally have been leaning towards.

I explained to them the two necessities of this style of production: interesting stories and engaging characters. I then asked them both to choose a topic they were deeply invested in and to find a story and character with whom they would shoot an interview with.

(more…)

 

11 December, 2008

Human rights at 60

Posted by Grace Davies under Uncategorized | Tags: |
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Along with human rights advocates around the world, this week we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Overseen by the UN, the UDHR was the first international document recognizing human rights as the foundation of peace, justice and freedom in the world. But at 60, how healthy are international human rights looking? And what are the next steps towards true human rights for all? (more…)