Note to Correspondents

Reham Al-Farra Memorial Journalists Fellowship Programme

 

Begins at United Nations Headquarters

 

The Journalists Programme, now called the United Nations Reham al-Farra Memorial Journalists Fellowship Programme, will be held at United Nations Headquarters in New York, beginning on Monday, 8 September.

Organized consecutively for 34 years by the Department of Public Information, the four-week Programme brings together 15 young journalists representing media organizations from a wide range of countries.  This year’s participants — nine woman and six men — representing both traditional and new media, hail from Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Colombia, Ethiopia, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, Republic of Moldova, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uganda and Viet Nam.  Since the inception of the Programme in 1981, 521 journalists and broadcasters from 168 countries have taken part in the Programme.

The Programme was established in 1980, when the General Assembly requested the Secretary-General to develop fellowships for journalists and broadcasters from developing countries and countries with economies in transition in order to acquaint them with the work of the United Nations.  Formerly known as the Department of Public Information Training Programme for Broadcasters and Journalists from Developing Countries, it was renamed in honour of Reham Al-Farra, a young journalist and staff member of the Department of Public Information killed in the 2003 attack on the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad.

Included in the schedule of activities are briefings by senior officials of the United Nations on major issues under consideration during the sixty-ninth session of the General Assembly.  The participants will also have the opportunity to observe the United Nations “in action” by attending meetings of the General Assembly and engaging in hands-on activities with United Nations media professionals in their respective field of expertise.

The participants will visit major media organizations and relevant non-governmental organizations in New York City to observe their operations, in addition to participating in a two-day academic workshop at Fordham University.

Below are the participants in the 2014 Programme:

Name	Country	Media Specialization
Mostefa Kamel Lastab	Algeria	Radio
Babele Some	Burkina Faso	Radio
Tabo Elvis	Chad	Radio/TV
Diana Jimenez	Colombia	Print/Internet
Rigbe Yohannes Woldelibanos	Ethiopia	Radio/TV
Zeinab Esmaeili Soveiri	Iran	Print
Ekaterina Ivashchenko	Kyrgyzstan	Internet
Sara Mattar	Lebanon	Print
Nizar Abusrih	Libya	TV
Maha Mussadaq	Pakistan	Print
Olga Ceaglei	Republic of Moldova	Print/Internet
Helmi Ben Aziza	Tunisia	Internet
Ruslan Rejepov	Turkmenistan	Print
Irene Namyalo	Uganda	TV
Hoang Chung Thuy	Viet Nam	Internet

For further information or to get in touch with the journalists, please contact Zvi Muskal at e-mail:   muskal@un.org or tel.: +1 917 367 5142, or visit http://outreach.un.org/raf.

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For information media • not an official record