Tunis, 28-29 September 2015
Within the framework of the EU-funded project MedMedia led by BBC Media Action, COPEAM organised a workshop in Tunis at the end of September, devoted to gender equality and addressed to the public broadcasters of the South-Mediterranean shore.
The event marked the beginning of a peer-to-peer exchange programme aimed at improving the capacities of the beneficiary Organisations related to gender equality and to women’s empowerment in their internal policies and professional practices.
The workshop brought together eight public broadcasters – PBC/Palestine, JRTV/Jordan, ERTU/Egypt, Tunisian Radio, SNRT and 2M/Morocco, EPTV and EPRS/Algeria – as well as gender experts from both the Mediterranean sides.
The participants discussed together the specific needs of each broadcaster involved with a view to seeking appropriate ways of addressing them. Lalia Behidj from the Algerian radio EPRS commented: “We are not talking in theory. Each of us has defined feasible and measurable objectives which can lead to concrete results and practical changes.” Hanadi Massoud from the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation said: “This sharing of experiences is extremely important. It gives us the opportunity to anticipate possible problems and, in some cases, to resolve them before they even happen.”
Such peer-to-peer exchanges embody the project’s main tool for enhancing its target groups’ skills and know-how. MedMedia is aimed at facilitating a mutual learning process between media practitioners in the partner countries, thereby providing an opportunity to establish the foundations for a professional community of practices’ exchange across the region.
The peers will take part in a second workshop in Amman at the beginning of 2016, while the outcomes of the overall activity will be presented during next COPEAM annual Conference – to be held in Ajaccio (Corsica) from 7 to 9 April 2016 – to the cultural, institutional and audiovisual representatives from all the Euro-Mediterranean countries.