aUgust 15–19, 2016
belarus
School of Environmental Journalism
In first time the School of Environmental Journalism started in Belarus with the support of IPO 'Ecopartnership' and 'ZOI Environment Network'.
Young journalists who prefer to write on environmental topics have been selected to participate in the School of Environmental Journalism.

Promotion was in June - July 2016. Submission of applications and selection of participants was also in June - July 10, 2016. The conducting of School took place in August 15-19, 2016, Country Club "Festivalniy".
Participants were 16 persons under 29 years, including 14 women and 2 men. Most of them are students of Journalism Departments from different cities of Belarus (Minsk, Grodno, Brest, Gomel, Soligorsk, Slonim).

SPEAKERS

Coaches introduced the peculiarities of the environmental themes, showed successful cases and gave useful recommendations for the young participants. The program included introduction to investigative journalism in the field of environmental protection and efficient use of Internet tools in the work of the journalist.
Elena Sadovskaya
Editor-in-Chief of the Green Portal
Viktor Melnik
Head of the Hydrometeorological Monitoring and Databases Department of the Republican Center of Hydrometeorology
Oleg Listopad
Environmental journalism trainer (Ukraine)
Konstantin Titov
Senior research assistant at RUE "Central Research Institute for Complex Use of Water Resources"
Oleg Cherp
Professor at Lund University, Sweden
Ulyana Boboyed
Еditor of the Special Correspondents Department of TUT.BY, former Deputy-editor of "Komsomolskaya Pravda in Belarus"
The School's program included a variety of sessions that were conducted by professional environmental experts and journalists. Each session lasted 1.5 hours and included a presentation of the lecturer, session of answering to audience's questions, and practical assignments.

Inessa Bolotina
Сoordinator of the public campaign "Save the Oaks of Pripyat"
Julia Yablonskaya
Chairwoman of IPO "Ecopartnership"
Daria Chumakova
Director of the program on environmentally friendly lifestyle of the Center for Environmental Solutions
Pavlyuk Bykovsky
SMM media-trainer
Igor Yanovsky
Designer and infografer of CZRT
Sergey Laboda
Moderator of projects
Before each session, the moderator conducted with the School participants different games to improve concentration and team building skills, which contributed to an active exchange of opinions during and after the presentations. The participants acquired general knowledge on various issues related to the environment: climate change, power industry, water resources, waste management, protected areas, and eco-friendly lifestyle.
Besides, professional journalists shared their experience with the young people on how to work with information sources, write high-quality journalistic texts, choose a right headline for them and about the resources where they can be publish it. Trainers in journalism told about the effective use of social networks by a journalist, the principles of creating infographics and about common tools, investigative journalism, and trends in the environmental journalism in Belarus.
Within the period of learning in the School each participant had the goal to come up with a few topics which they would like to cover in the future, to come up with a headline for them, and to write first sentences for a future article or a script. On the final day, they presented their plans and received advice from other participants, representatives of the "Belecopartnership" and Oleg Listopad.
The School participants expressed their wish to write about the consequences of climate change in their region, public service advertising, environmental attention to deserted military bases, veganism, the problem of collecting pet waste in Belarus, and other themes.
In addition to training sessions, every day at the School included recreational activities - the participants watched environmental films, took part in a rope course passing, bonfire, and team building games. On the final day of the School the participants received as a souvenir commemorative certificates, as well as notebooks with the School's logo.
Photos are taking by Konstantin Goretsky, Alesya Chumakova, Nikita Pastukhov,
Julia Dubovskaya and Michael Anufriev

RESULTS

Many participants indicated in the evaluation forms and during debriefing that the School has inspired them to get engaged into environmental issues. They have improved the level of awareness of environmental issues in Belarus and all over the world, and learned a set of journalistic techniques for successful media activity.

The young authors were able to meet and get contacts of Belarusian and international experts on various environmental issues which might come in handy in the future. The School also helped to establish contacts between young journalists from different regions of Belarus.
Have a question? Wanna know more?
E-mail to us!
bel@ecopartnerstvo.by
Or visit our site
'Ecopartnership'

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