Following the Contest "Media Against TB Epidemic", Yalta hosted a workshop-training in Yalta-Inturist Hotel and awarded the winners on 12 - 14 October, 2007.
 

We remind that in April, 2007 SCM's Corporate Foundation for Development of Ukraine supported by the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine initiated a contest on the best coverage of TB epidemic in the regional media. Print and online media, information agencies, TV and radio broadcasting companies took part in the contest held under the national program of the Foundation "Stop TB in Ukraine".

The opening day saw Vlasta Shovkovskaya, External Communications Director of the Foundation, present all areas and projects of Foundations' activities. She said Ukraine needs social investment to cope with national problems, and the Foundation for Development of Ukraine invests $10m annually in social projects. The 5-year contribution to realize Stop TB Project amounts to around UAH 100m.

Ms Shovkovskaya highlighted: "Our top objective is to eradicate roots of TB. We can speak about effectiveness and success of our initiatives only if local and national governments on all levels unite their efforts. Media are the fourth power. Journalists are trusted and listened to. It was very much important for is to involve as many media as possible to cover the problem. The outcome exceeded our expectations. The guys would write, take video, make excellent copyright stories, and send them to the contest. The jurors were in fact in a predicament since it was difficult for them to choose the best materials out of so many stories. They also said that social journalism was objective and covered problems and concerns of people as deep as never before".

The workshop was attended by 39 press and TV journalists coming from all Ukrainian regions. The event was organized and held by Internews-Ukraine specialists Andrey Kulakov and Anton Topchiy, as well as media-lawyer Olga Bolshakova.

According to Andrey Kulakov, Program Director of Internews-Ukraine, the contest organized by the Foundation for Development of Ukraine pursued a noble goal to increase the number of journalistic stories on TB fight. As a juror of the contest, he said: "The jurors and trainers developed a training program having analyzed the received stories. We hope the training will improve the quality of journalistic pieces. I mean, their articles and programs will be both properly-written and interesting for readers, and thus can attract attention of citizens to this problem. We hope that eventually the journalists will help Ukrainians be more careful about their health, TB prevention, as well as provide a prompt feedback to low-quality and untimely medical services. I want to say that the session on TB, its spreading and fighting methods was incredibly informative. I was positively surprised with a thought-out and competent medical program of the Foundation for Development of Ukraine. Our organization – Internews Ukraine – is happy to join the good initiative of the Foundation and keep working to introduce standards of social journalism in Ukraine".

A well-known journalist Vakhtang Kipiani, who edits Great Ukrainians project on Inter TV-channel, was a special guest and showed examples of social journalism methods.

Elena Neshcheret, manager of awareness campaign for the regional program Stop TB in Ukraine, outlined the international strategy of TB combat drive that provides for effective use of public health care resources and helps reduce TB morbidity within several years. She used practical epidemiology data to show how the disease is spreading in the society and how TB myths affect effectiveness of treatment and stigmatization of infected people. An important element was an excellent discussion of new TB epidemic challenges, i.e. combination of HIV/TB and drug-resistant TB.

The workshop targeted to encourage stories (publications, TV-programs, reports, information messages) to:

inform population about gravity and wide-spread of TB epidemic in Ukraine;
ensure understanding of TB-related problems and eliminate negative attitude to ill people;
to carry out awareness raising activities for population to prevent the disease and treat it on initial stages.

The following points were discussed:

development trends of the regional media;
social and legal responsibility of a journalist;
results of social polls on TB problem;
correct coverage of information in media;
effectiveness of the Ukrainian media in the fight against TB epidemic.

Grand closing of the workshop hosted honorary awarding of the Contest winners. Vechrnyaya Makeyevka local newspaper won the nomination For the Best Coverage of TB Epidemic in Print Media, Information Agencies, and Online Editions and received the prize of UAH 20,000. The second prize and UAH 10,000 was taken to Kam'yanets-Podolskiy City by Kray Kam'yanetskyy. The certificate for the third place and UAH 5,000 were awarded to regional newspaper Chornomorski Novyny.

TV and radio broadcasting company Skif-2 (Konstantinovka, Donetsk Region) took the first place For the Best Coverage of TB Epidemic in TV and Radio Companies and received UAH 20,000. OGTRK Krym won the second place and UAH 10,000. The third place and a prize of UAH 5,000 were awarded to Symy State Regional TV Company.

The contest with a follow-up workshop-training on the regional level proved to be an effective and important element of the TB-combat awareness campaign. TB epidemic is a national problem and must be spoken about not only in big cities by highly circulated editions. Every settlement must know about it. Only regional media can help achieve this goal. SCM's Corporate Foundation for Development of Ukraine is happy to thank all workshop participants and looks forward to further cooperation.

Having summed up the workshop, Vlasta Shovkovskaya shared the plans for future: "The Foundation is going to hold regional and national contests Mass Media Against TB annually. Conditions of new contests will be announced in March-April, 2008 and we will discuss their results next autumn in Yalta. I'm sure these meetings will be equally useful and pleasant for all participants".

Press-office
Foundation for Development of Ukraine
Tel: +38 044 502 52 15