KHOROG, July 23, 2008, Asia-Plus — Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) intends to organize a trip of a group of Tajik journalists to Germany, Mr. Wolf Lapins (phonetically spelled), the FES regional coordinator for Central Asia, said at a meeting with journalists in Khorog, Gorno Badakhshan on July 23.
According to him, the purpose of the trip is to acquaint Tajik journalists with political and economic situation in Germany. “Since the energy crisis throughout the world is worsening more and more, we also intend to make them familiar with ways and methods of tackling ecological problems and using alternate energy resources in our country,” the regional coordinator said.
He also underlined the importance of cooperation between Tajik journalists and their colleagues from other countries. “We conducted two seminars on this subject in Kazakhstan recently, he said.
Mr. Lapins noted that one of priorities of the FES activity is to provide journalists with access to various sources of information and promote raising their professionalism.
During the meeting, it was decided to organize a seminar on on-line journalism for Tajik journalists in the near future.
The SPD
-associated Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) is the largest and oldest of the German party-associated foundations. It is headquartered in Bonn and has an office in Berlin. The FES was named for Friedrich Ebert (1871-1925), the Social Democratic President of Germany. In his will, he specified that the proceeds from donations at his funeral should be used to create a foundation. The SPD chairman at the time, Konrad Ludwig, was given the responsibility of building this foundation, which he did a few days after Ebert”s death in 1925. Today, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation”s main goals are to promote political and societal education of people from all walks of life in the spirit of democracy and pluralism, to enable young people the opportunity to study and do research through grants, and to work toward international understanding and cooperation. The foundation employs several hundred employees in their offices in Bonn and Berlin, as well as well as in 14 regional offices and an academy within Germany and in over 100 foreign agencies. It is financed mainly through grants from the federal budget and the budgets of the various Bundeslander. Since 1971, foreign students have also had the opportunity to receive grants through solidarity funds.
