"Freedom leads to freedom" - with this slogan, on September 26, another solidarity meeting-discussion was held in the office of the Kakheti Regional Development Fund in Akhmeta. Representatives of regional media, non-governmental organizations, and local municipalities attended the meetings.
Representatives from the following organizations participated in the discussion: Women's council of elders, Kakheti Regional Development Fund, Youth Union for the Development of the Region, newspaper "Bakhtrioni", and the organization "Uketesi Momavali", etc.
The discussion of solidarity covered three directions:
Solidarity towards the media from the public;
Solidarity within the media;
Media solidarity towards vulnerable groups.
Tamar Bekauri, Kakheti Development Fund: "In the Pankisi Gorge, we deal with women's rights and very actively cooperate with the Women's Council of elders. For the protection of women's rights, legislative changes were introduced to our initiative. Unfortunately, the media are less interested in topics that are painful for us and what our organization has been doing since 2008... When working with vulnerable groups, the trust is very important! We are a bridge for the media and laed journalists to these vulnerable groups."
The goal of the Project "Media Voice: Less Self-censorship, more freedom in media" os to promote freedom of expression by building media viability and resilience against self-censorship and fear through capacity building of media workers and empowering supportive media environment. The objectives of project “Media Voice” are to strengthen the supportive media environment by developing solidarity journalism, building a solidarity network and reducing polarisation among media workers; the project aims to enhance journalists’ competencies in covering topics, which are related to human rights without fear and self-censorship, more accurately.
Another training was conducted in Akhmeta on October 30.Journalists and civic activists participated in the training.
In frame of the event, memorandum of understanding was signed between MCERC and Kakheti Regional Development Center. The project "Media Voice: More Freedom, Less Self-censorship" is implemented with the support of Embassy of the Netherlands in Georgia.
