The commencement of training for the 2007 batch of the Salma Sobhan Fellowship for Women in Journalism was marked by an inauguration ceremony at the BRAC Centre for Development Management (BCDM) at Savar on Wednesday. At the event the 60 trainee fellows of the 2007 batch, all representing different districts of the country, were joined by a number of resource persons involved in the training, which included leading intellectuals and media personalities. The meeting was addressed by Keynote Speaker Ms. Tasmima Hossain, Editor, Ananya Magazine, noted author Mr. Imdadul Haque Milon. Mr Shah Alamgir, Chief News Editor, Channel I, spoke on behalf of Channel I. The speakers were book-ended with addresses by Ms. Mariom Shelly, Salma Sobhan Fellow 2006 and chair of the event Mr. Faruq A. Choudhury, Adviser, BRAC.

Conceived by BRAC and Pratichi Trust, the Salma Sobhan Fellowship for Women in Journalism is intended to addresses the imbalance in the number of female journalists in the country by training aspiring women journalists at the district level in the fundamentals of journalism and development issues. The programme runs yearly with funding from BRAC and Pratichi trust and technical expertise from a media partner. During the first year, 32 women from the district level were trained in print journalism with technical partner Prothom Alo, many of these journalists are now working in media outlets throughout the country. Once the 60 women currently under training with technical partner Channel I complete their fellowship requirements and join the 32 fellows from the first batch, the Salma Sobhan Fellowship will have almost reached the half-way mark of achieving its target of training 200 women journalists in 3 years with 92 representing both print and electronic media.

The Salma Sobhan Fellowship training includes sensitisation on development issues conducted by BRAC, with resource persons from both BRAC as well as leading academic institutions around the country such as Dhaka University. Following the development aspect of the training period, the technical partner will conduct training on journalism fundamentals, for both print and electronic media. Following these 2 week training periods are attachment periods several months long where the trainee fellows send in reports while based in their respective districts. The successful completion of 2 training periods, 2 attachment periods and a refresher session are required to obtain the fellowship. The current batch of Salma Sobhan Fellows is scheduled to complete their training in March 2007.

© 2005 BRAC Bangladesh
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