More than 29 media managers, journalists, camerapersons, reporters, and students studying journalism increased their knowledge on gender and disability-sensitive reporting during the pilot training “Media and Disability”. The training was held on 14 May 2022 in Gyumri city by “Agate” Rights Defense Center for Women with Disabilities NGO within the framework of “I Can Break Stereotypes in My Community” project
“The training aims to build the capacities of people who work in media on how to present women and girls with different types of disabilities in the media. The training helped them to build their capacities on gender-related issues, and understand the importance of breaking gender and disability-based stigma and stereotypes in society. We will held the similar training in Lori and Tavush regions”, said Gayane Grigoryan, “I can break stereotypes in my community” project coordinator.
“There is a lot of discriminatory reporting in the media nowadays. Participation in this type of training is crucial. By learning more about the topic, we can communicate properly while working with women and girls with disabilities”, said Nikol Margaryan, a student of the Faculty of Journalism of the Shirak State University.
The pilot training will help to develop the training modules more effective and relevant for the participants. “Not only pre and post-training knowledge assessment was conducted but also evaluation of different components of the training was done. All the data which was collected and analyzed through pre and post training questionnaires, will be used to make future training more effective”, said Rosa Avagyan, the evaluation, and monitoring specialist of the project. She also highlighted that the number of participants in the pilot training was even more than the organizers had initially expected. “This fact demonstrates the high interest of our media colleagues in the topic”, she added.
The project “I can break stereotypes in my community” is implemented in the framework of the “EU 4 Gender Equality: Together against gender stereotypes and gender-based violence” regional programme, funded by the European Union and implemented jointly by UN Women and UNFPA.