| Newsletter 12
Bigger and better Jemstone: at the Network Partners’ Evaluation
Workshop, last week in Jordan, it was decided to
establish Jemstone National Organisations in the main
partner countries:
to strengthen contact between the
hundreds of Jemstone "graduates",
to advance the aims of Jemstone,
and
to create a powerful,
decentralised structure for the most extensive
media network in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Jemstone Jordan, Jemstone Syria,
Jemstone Egypt, Jemstone Palestine, Jemstone
Cyprus, Jemstone Turkey and Jemstone Lebanon were
set up at the workshop; and heads of most of
these national Jemstone organisations were
selected then too. Their first job will be to
make contact with everyone in their country who
has been involved with Jemstone since its
beginnings in autumn 1993. Each will then lobby
for Jemstone, help to select suitable
participants for Jemstone events (and suitable
additional organisations to join the network),
organise and run some of the activities to
Jemstone standards and feed ideas back to the
network centre in Amman. They will meet once or
twice a year to co-ordinate Jemstone’s
plans. The evaluation
workshop itself developed a detailed plan for
the next eighteen months, (to the end of 1998),
covering 15 different kinds of activities,
including:
Euro-Mediterranean journalist
Round Table seminars on key issues;
a training course for in-house
training managers;
specialist reporters courses on
business, politics, culture etc;
a journalism course for young,
committed journalists;
a style-book for the Arabic
language press;
increasing media access to the
internet, e-mail and the Jemstone Web-site;
exchange visits between Euro-Med
media organisations.
Over twenty organisations from all
eight countries of the region were represented
and others sent ideas in advance. At a press
conference, attended by over 100 international
journalists and leading members of Jordanian
society, the Jemstone Interactive Web-site was
officially launched. Describing the occasion as
"one of the most important days for the
freedom of the media in the whole region,"
the Jemstone Director, Tudor Lomas, thanked the
European Union for their financial contribution
which had made the web-site possible. Jemstone provides high level
media consultancy, international-standard
seminars and workshops, conference facilities and
support, the most extensive network of media
contacts in the region, and a track record second
to none. If you would like to sponsor Jemstone or
give financial support to the organisation or any
aspect of our extensive programme please contact
Tudor Lomas directly at the addresses below.
|
|
