Seven-day training workshop: Radio can be a tool to promote peace, tolerance: speakers | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Seven-day training workshop: Radio can be a tool to promote peace, tolerance: speakers

Karachi: Finding a common ground on conflicting issues through talk shows geared towards promoting dialogue and peace building was the main theme of the seven-day training workshop on Radio for peace building that concluded on Wednesday.

This was for the first time in the history of FM radio in Pakistan that a training of this nature was organised providing an opportunity to the FM radio producers and hosts to learn and share their own experiences on how radio could be used for peace building. Though quite extensive, the training looked at peace building not as a one-time activity, but as a process that occurs on multiple levels, personal, community, national and how radio can facilitate this process.

The participants assessed radio’s role in Pakistan from a peace and conflict perspective and shared their experiences on how radio programming can be geared towards promoting co-existence and tolerance in the Pakistani society.

It explored issues from how do conflicts become violent and how does conflict end to exploring common ground approaches to talk shows, identifying and defining target audiences and how to reach objectives of gaining knowledge that would help change attitudes and behaviours leading to a peaceful and tolerant Pakistan.

The workshop was the first of the series of more trainings and networking geared towards the “National Radio Partnership for Peace” a national initiative to raise the profile of FM radio stations in Pakistan and building the capacity of FM stations in Balochistan, FATA, Gilgit-Baltistan, Islamabad, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Sindh and Azad Jammu & Kashmir. The workshop empowers them to use dialogue as a way of addressing local issues and to promote peace in their respective communities.

The initiative also aims to offer a major platform for the FM radio stations across Pakistan to highlight their important role in building peaceful and prosperous local communities.

So far over 40 FM channels have signed MoUs with Uks and Intermedia- the project’s two implementing partners to cooperate in the execution of the project, which includes a series of events and opportunities for Pakistan’s radio sector.

This project is being supported by Search for Common Ground an international non-government, non-partisan organisation, currently working in 22 countries across the globe.
Source: The News
Date:7/8/2010