Central Asian workshop produces six fresh TV programs on HIV

ALMATY. November 18. KAZINFORM Central Asian workshop held on Nov 17 for critical analysis on HIV and AIDS television coverage has produced six new TV programs on HIV and AIDS.

According to UNAIDS, Europe and Central Asia is the only region in the world where the HIV epidemic is growing. Today the region has about 2.2 million HIV-infected persons, more than double of the figure of 2000.

On 6-10 June, 2011 in Almaty, The Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics and Strategic Research (KIMEP) conducted a five-day training workshop for young TV producers, the press service of the UNESCO Almaty Cluster Office reports.

The workshop organizers are the UNESCO Cluster Office for Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in Almaty, in collaboration with the Journalism and Mass Communication Department of KIMEP. The purpose of the second part of the training, which began in May 2010, was to improve the critical analysis skills of television producers and improve the quality of television programs on HIV and AIDS.

The participants of the workshop are young TV producers from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, who were chosen through a competition organized on the training phase last year.

During the workshop participants and invited experts from the Kazakhstan Union of People Living with HIV discussed the appropriate investigative standards of produced TV programmes and refined their individual projects on the HIV theme. At the end of the workshop, KIMEP recorded best programs on a video DVD, as well as published them online, to exchange and screen produced TV programs among broadcasters. In addition, these links and DVDs used to supplement the UNESCO Journalism textbook Getting the Story and Telling it Right, HIV on TV: A Handbook for Television Trainers and Producers.

This training contributes to the implementation of the UNESCO strategy for journalists in the HIV and AIDS media coverage.