Timor-Leste: Women in training

[Internews facilitated the establishment the Timor-Leste Media Development center referred to in the article]

April 6, 2006 -- Angelina Alves is almost too busy to talk about the training program for women journalists, which she has been undertaking for the past 12 weeks in and around Timor-Leste’s capital Dili.

In that time, the 21 year old from a community radio station in the district of Viqueque, has mastered a software program called Cool Edit Pro. It’s a program, which radio journalists around the world regard as standard to their work, but in Timor-Leste it’s a rare commodity.

The digital voice recordings for the documentary program Alves is making on malnutrition and child health issues, appear on her computer screen as green squiggly lines. As she clicks on the mouse to cut and paste parts of people’s speech, she says the training has made a huge difference to her skills and confidence.

“I am very happy with the training and I have a plan that when I go back to my district I will be practicing real journalism,” she says. “I now understand a lot more about gender issues and how to do reporting on them too.”

The training program, funded by the World Bank-administered Norwegian Trust Fund for Mainstreaming Gender (GENFUND), is the first in Timor-Leste targeted at women journalists. Implemented by a local non government organization, the Timor-Leste Media Development center, the program has brought together 10 young women who do voluntary work in community radio stations in10 different districts in Timor-Leste.

In 1999, departing Indonesian forces laid ruin to Timor-Leste’s communications networks. Everything was destroyed -- radio stations, transmission lines and television infrastructure. With World Bank and other international donor support, community radio stations were built around the country, filling a gap in local information provision. With illiteracy rates at 55 per cent for women and 46 per cent among men, radio remains a vital source of news and knowledge.

A Broader Understanding

Through the training program, the women have learned far more than how to use state of the art digital recording and editing equipment and how to write a story and gather information, they’ve also developed their understanding of issues affecting women’s lives in the newest nation in the world.

Through special workshops, the women are also learning about issues such as governance, domestic violence, gender equality and even the petroleum sector -- a vital sector to Timor-Leste, a nation with significant oil and gas resources. Through workshops, they also discuss the role of the World Bank in development.

And with an eye to the future, the program also seeks to forge links with women journalists in Indonesia and elsewhere in the Asia Pacific region.

Under the guidance of former BBC Radio and Radio Free Asia journalist, Landai Nguyen Rees, the women have traveled into rural areas to put together documentaries and talk shows on issues ranging from domestic violence to infant and child health to women in politics.

At a workshop in Baucau, the women interviewed female police officers about the impacts of domestic violence in the community. Landai, now from Internews in Timor-Leste, said the women’s enthusiasm to learn and develop their skills was remarkable, especially considering that most of them would be working as volunteers when they returned home.

When she goes back to Viqueque, Angelina will fill a vital role as an information provider in a place where community radio is the only source of outside news and information. There is no TV or other radio transmission and newspapers rarely reach the area. As a result, an estimated 75 per cent of people in her district will be tuning into her programs.

“At my station, we have not known how to make documentaries or talk shows before,” she explains. “That’s why I wanted to come to this training program. Now I know a lot more about a lot of issues and also how to make a good program.”