The aims of the project are trifold: 1. To bring together migrant and host community journalists to collaborate and learn with, not about, one another; 2. To enhance professional capacities of the journalists through 12 targeted skills trainings; 3. To raise awareness of the issues of xenophobia and hate speech vis-a-vis refugees in Turkey, fostering empathy with the displaced on an international scale.
Turkey hosts over 4 million refugees, more than any other country. With the Syrian Civil War and humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, more vulnerable families and individuals have fled to Turkey with the hopes of eventually reaching Europe or the US. Despite suffering some of the worst effects of the pandemic and its economic fallout, refugees, asylum seekers, and other forced migrants in Turkey have increasingly become scapegoats, subjected to hate speech and xenophobia in the media.
To combat this trend, HasNa has teamed up with Krkayak Kultur in Gaziantep, Turkey. The project consists of four acts: Act 1: Train 20 refugee and host participants over the course of 11 sessions led by expert journalists and academics. Act 2: Form small multicultural groups to collaborate on joint media projects. Act 3: Present groups' media projects before international audiences in Gaziantep and Washington, DC. Act 4: Publish report and policy recommendations.
The project will bring together 20 refugee and host journalists to combat hate speech, xenophobia, and misinformation about refugees in the media. Participants will be able to sharpen their journalistic skills through 12 training sessions that focus on the importance of living together and peace journalism. The skills taught throughout the course, and the networks established, will help both the refugee and host community members to be competitive in the journalistic and social media job market.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
