Empowering Local Media

Internews has been working in Sri Lanka since 2005, providing information services to vulnerable communities and delivering training to both established journalists and young trainees. Internews works closely with local organisations and the Government to harness the power of media and information to help people develop a peaceful and prosperous Sri Lanka.

Digital Media Training in Batticaloa

Ten trainee journalists with the Batticaloa Media House underwent a two day digital media training programme conducted jointly by Perambara and Internews.

This was the second such programme following the one in Matara.

The trainees were introduced to blogging, Flickr, Twitter and typing in Tamil using Google transliterator. At the end of the session, all the participants had created their blog, Flickr feed and a Twitter feed.

The participants mostly from rural families in Batticaloa found that the training conducted by Malinthe Samarakoon, one of Sri Lanka’s best known web designers and bloggers very useful.

They said that they hardly have any resources to undergo such training and requested for more such programme.

Their initial blog posts also showed that by training regional journalists, how stories from within their communities could reach a wider audience. one of the first posts was on the plight of Kelliveddi IDPs who have been displaced from  almost four years now.

One participant later wrote to the  trainers – “I am very thankful to you.This is first experience in my journalism field.We are expecting (more of) your services in our media house in future. I hope you will do.”