Growing demand for safety among journalists in Tajikistan

Tajik journalists need training on legal literacy, as well as personal and digital security.The conclusionwas made by the National Association of Independent Media of Tajikistan (NANSMIT) after researching the needs of independent journalists who are part of the organization's network.

Independent journalists who are part of the NANSMIT network (60 people) called legal literacy the most demanded topic for the future trainings. Moreover, personal and digital security turned out to be popular topics for trainings. These studies were carried out by NANSMIT within the framework of the Internews project - “Support for media associations in Tajikistan”.The competition for participation in this project was announced at the beginning of 2022, and according to the results of voting by independent jury, the NANSMIT application turned out to be the best.

Currently, NANSMIT has over 30 independent media outlets and 60 independent journalists.The Association is the main media organization that since 1999 has been working to protect the rights of journalists and the media and protects the rights and interests of its member organizations and independent journalists.

“Support for the Media Association” project we started with the development of “Roadmap” for the further development of our Association,” says NuriddinKarshiboev. – As part of the project, we are also promoting media ethics and self-regulation mechanisms in the media.In addition to the studies conducted to identify priority areas for NANSMIT activities, two focus groups were also held, which included independent journalists.They helped us set priorities for the future of our organization.

According to Nuriddin Кarshiboev, during the focus groups and research, lack of teamwork skills (lack of a team, lack of understanding the importance of teamwork)was indicated, as well as a lack of knowledge on how to develop and manage projects.In addition, the participants expressed their desire to receive advice on the correct formulation of the problem and the formulation of the goals and objectives of the projects according to the criteria of SMART and SWOT analysis.

One of the trainings within this project was held in Dushanbe over the weekend on November 12-13.It was attended by 14 journalists from affiliates; the main topics were the development and management of projects, as well as teamwork skills.

“The purpose of this training is primarily to empower our organization.We want to make our team strong in order to achieve our goals.Inviting members of our organization to this training is not without reason: we plan to prepare joint projects in the future,” says Karshiboev.

During the two-day training, the participants were actively engaged in sessions, as well as in interactive tasks.

— NANSMIT has in factgreat experience in conducting trainings.However, we paid close attention to this training and decided to consider real projects together with the participants,” adds Karshiboev.
Journalists turned each session into a discussion by sharing their experience and by making suggestion to improve the work of NANSMIT. One of the participants of the training was MarkhaboZununova, an experienced journalist, editor of the Russian version of Payomi Dushanbe.

— I haven’t participated in trainings for a long time, but this particular topic turned out to be very interesting for me and I decided to apply and became one of the participants.During the interactive sessions, I found out that I was ready to take on most of the important tasks of the team work, she says.

Monitoring service NANSMIT