Funding will facilitate international humanitarian law online course to media professionals in four main languages
For immediate release
10 June 2013
A $39,368 grant from the United States Institute of Peace will allow HREA to proceed with its proposal to develop and implement a self-paced e-learning course on reporting on international humanitarian law for media professionals, in Arabic, English, French and Spanish, the organization announced today.
“A lack of understanding of the laws of armed conflict is one of the main barriers to peacebuilding efforts”, says Frank Elbers, HREA’s Executive Director. “This grant will allow HREA to train media professionals to report on humanitarian law and hence inform citizens and others working on the prevention of conflict.”
The United States Institute of Peace is the USA’s global conflict management center. Created by Congress to be independent and nonpartisan, USIP works to prevent, mitigate and resolve international conflict through nonviolent means.
As part of its congressional mandate, USIP devotes a significant portion of its budget to grant-making in the fields of peacebuilding and conflict management. Over twenty years, the Institute’s Grant Program has awarded more than 2,100 grants in 47 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and in 87 foreign countries. The Grant Program increases the breadth and depth of the Institute’s work by supporting peacebuilding projects managed by non-profit organizations including educational institutions, research institutions, and civil society organizations.
The project aims to increase the capacity of media professionals including journalists reporting from situations of conflict, war reporters, bloggers, citizen-journalists, editors and publicists to report accurately and responsibly on conflict and post-conflict situations and with an understanding of international humanitarian law. It is anticipated that over time, the public will have a deeper understanding of international humanitarian law and greater capabilities to contribute to post conflict stability and prevent further conflict.
Raya Barazanji, the Institute’s Senior Program Officer with oversight of this project, says that “The project will benefit a large number of media professional around the globe since it will be offered online and in four main languages. Increasing the capacity of these change agents will certainly have impact beyond the life of the project. It will lead to an increase in the quality, depth and scope of their media coverage, and will increase the public’s understanding of international humanitarian law.”
The four 3-to-6 hour e-courses will be developed in English, beta tested, revised, translated into Arabic, French and Spanish, and published on HREA’s website in open access format. It will be accompanied by digital publications of course content (approximately 50 pages each).