Center in collaboration with Palladium Pakistan and support from UK Aid held a consultative workshop to develop a graduate level curriculum on ‘Human Rights Media’. The residential workshop was held in Bhurban from September 11 to 13, 2018, for the faculty members of the participating institutes that will be piloting this curriculum. The course features the Human Rights Based Approach to media content development and reporting.
On day one, Dr Islam, Dean of Iqra University Islamabad gave two sessions on history of human rights and the evolution of human rights in the modern era. Ehtesham Abbas, Senior Media Advisor and Shagufta Bhatti, Program Director at Center delivered sessions on the ‘Role of Journalists in Human Rights Media’ and ‘State of Human Rights in Pakistan’.
Dr Atif Ikram Butt, Executive Director at Center introduced the Human Rights-based Approach to the participants. He talked in depth about the application of this framework in media and journalism. He also gave a presentation on the critique of this approach in order for the faculty members to be able to perceive it from various angles. In addition to this, Natasha Ejaz, Program Specialist at Center talked about the quantitive and qualitative methods commonly applied in human rights research.
The participating institutes included, SZABIST Karachi, Habib University Karachi, CEJ-IBA Karachi, Fatimah Jinnah Women University Rawalpindi, IQRA University Islamabad and University of Peshawar.
On the final day, Center invited two participants to deliver lectures on their expert areas. Ms. Muna Khan, a lecturer at CEJ-IBA talked about ‘Ethics in Journalism while Ms. Sahar Siddiqui from IQRA gave a presentation on ‘Media Law’. A guest speaker, Mr. Asif Khan, CEO of DW was also present and talked about his extensive experience in the media industry from an operational point of view.
The workshop concluded with a certificate award ceremony.