An Orientation workshop on ‘Business and Human Rights Media Fellowship’ was jointly organized by Participatory Research Action Network-PRAN and ActionAid Bangladesh on September 14, 2019 to award the Fellowship for the journalists at Marie Stopes, Lalmatia Dhaka.
This fellowship was awarded considering the submitted proposal and professional history of the journalists working with human rights and potential of success in serving the purpose of upholding human rights threatened by business interventions through media action and supporting the communities. In the context of’ Business and Human Rights Workshop’ held June 22-23, 2019, BRAC CDM, 16 journalists proposed their reports for this fellowship and 9 was awarded among them.
The awarded journalists of ‘Business and Human Rights Media Fellowship’ are- Anamul Haque from Daily Samakal, Jannatul Ferdausi from GTV, Kamrun Nahar Shova from The Financial Express, Mintu Deshwara from Daily Star, Mohammad Sahabuddin from Daily Samakal, Mosiur Rahman Rubel Doinik Janata, Nesser Uddin Tipu from Prothom Alo, Rashed Obaid Ripon from GTV and Zahidur Rahman from Samakal.
Mr. Md. Abul Kalam Azad, Deputy Manager – FGGII Project Bangladesh started the workshop by congratulating all the fellowship winners. Asgar Ali Sabri, Director of ActionAid Bangladesh; Shamser Ali and Nuzhat Zabin from ActionAid Bangladesh were presented on that daylong workshop. Hasan Mehedi, Focal of Bangladesh Working Group of External Debts; Mir Masrur Zaman, Senior News Editor of Channel I, Iftekhar Mahmud, Special Corresponded of the Daily Prothom Alo, Nurul Alam Masud, CEO of PRAN were present there as mentors for the fellowship and conducted their assigned sessions where all the awarded journalists participated.
Mir Masrur Zaman delivered his momentous directives on choice of history, investigation, information gathering strategy, structure, policy ask etc matters emergent for the journalists to get the reports ready. Iftekhar Mahmud focused on strategies to address the issues of environment, project environmental impact assessment in proposed stories. Issues related to foreign investment, Global and National Legal and Institutional Frameworks were discussed by Mr. Hasan Mehedi. The final session of addressing and focusing of human rights issues related to infrastructure development process was directed by M. Nurul Alam masud.
At the end of the daylong workshop, a Q&A episode was conducted with active participation of fellows and mentors.
