Journalists and representatives of civil society organizations, members of the National Council of Disability Organizations in Macedonia, participated in a workshop for inclusive journalism and generating topics for video stories related to advocating the rights of persons with disability.
The Republic Centre – PORAKA, as a member of the National Council of Disability Organizations in Macedonia (NSIOM), actively took part in the workshop with its representatives. The workshop, which was held on 7 May through ZOOM, was attended by one representative from PORAKA Skopje, PORAKA Stip and PORAKA Strumica.
The aim of the workshop was to contribute to promoting the cooperation between the journalists and civil society organizations that represent the rights of persons with disability, through joint work on video stories that will deal with different topics related to the problems of persons with disability. Marina Tuneva, Director of the Council of Media Ethics of Macedonia, and Daniela Drashtata, editor in the Croatian Radio and Television had their presentations during the workshop. Tuneva referred to the image of persons with disability in the media, the problematic aspects in reporting about their rights and how to improve the reporting about these categories of citizens through inclusive journalism. The guest from Croatian Radio and Television, through practical examples, pointed out how the journalistic reporting should be conceptualizes to promote greater inclusion of persons with disability.
The representatives of the civil society organization, members of the National Council of Disability Organizations in Macedonia presented the key difficulties faced by persons with disability. Among other things, they pointed out the problems with the quality of health care during the pandemic, limited opportunities for inclusion in the community, the non-compliance with the rules for accessibility in construction and renovation of public areas, insufficient assistance for children with disability in the education process, unavailability of assistive devices, etc.
The journalists who participated in the workshop, in cooperation with the representatives of civil society organizations will cover these topics in video stories to raise public awareness regarding these issues and to put pressure on competent institutions to take adequate measures.
The workshop was organized within the project “Partnership, Advocacy and Communication for Effective Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities”, which is being implemented by the Macedonian Institute for Media and NSIOM, with financial support from the Civica Mobilitas programme.
