DUSHANBE, November 4, 2008, Asia-Plus — The Independent School of Journalism “Tajikistan – 21st Century” (School) has hosted a series of master classes for employees of press services of ministries and organizations and media on how to work with e-mail and update website materials.
Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, the School executive director Safo Safarov said that the training participants had considered the following themes: improvement of basic computer skills; preparation of computerized presentation; updating website materials; and work with e-mail for distribution of press releases.
Using the School office equipment, the master class participants had an opportunity to learn various computer programs and improve their skills of use of Internet. The training had been conducted by skilled IT specialists Abdurahim Abdumajidov and Suhrob Rahimov.
Earlier, media expert Iskandar Firouz had conducted master classes for the target group on the subjects such as “Cooperation between Press Services and Journalists and Interaction between Press Service and other Departments within Organization”, “Successful Communication”, “PR”, “Oratory”, etc. ; and preparation of press releases bulletins, brochures, etc.
The training and master classes were conducted in two stages in the framework of “Access to Information: Cooperation and Transparency” project implemented by the School under support of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee.
The main objective of the “Access to Information: Cooperation and Transparency” project is to promote providing reliable access to information of significance for society through raising professionalism of journalists and press service employees and establishing an efficient interaction between media and press services of the state institutions.
Established in June 1999, the Independent School of Journalism “Tajikistan – 21st Century” aims to promote improvement of professionalism of journalists, development of Tajikistan’s information market, ad strengthening of competitiveness of media. Over the period of its activity, the School has implemented some 20 projects, including “Tajikistan’s Journalism in New Century”, “Management in Media”, “Journalistic Resource Center” as well as the cross-border project “Tajikistan-Afghanistan: Bridges of Friendship”, etc. As part of the projects, the School has conducted seminars, trainings and training courses on raising professionalism of journalists, instructing media personnel in modern methods of management and marketing, information and computer technologies, norms of journalistic ethics, etc.
