World Press Photo gaat met de mensenrechtenorganisatie Human Rights Watch in Noord-Afrika een gezamenlijk project opzetten om de democratische ontwikkelingen te bevorderen. Ze krijgen daarvoor een beurs van de Postcode Loterij. Het project loop van volgende maand tot en met oktober 2014, waarbij men zich met name op Egyote en Tunesië richt.
Het Engelstalige persbericht vervolgt:
While each organization will concentrate on their respective fields of expertise, the programs will work toward a joint goal using complementary approaches—journalism training, in the case of World Press Photo, and research and advocacy in the case of Human Rights Watch—to reach a target audience that includes policymakers, journalists, civil society actors, and the general public.
World Press Photo will support the development of strong visual journalism communities that can inspire understanding about the developments taking place in the region following the events of spring 2011 locally and internationally. Human Rights Watch will monitor human rights in developing democracies, investigate and report on entrenched human rights violations, and press new governments in transition countries to implement change and protect the human rights of their people.
The key objectives are:
- To train a strong, professional, and more self-reliant visual journalism community;
- To document and exhibit a local perspective on the changes taking place across North Africa;
- To expose on-going human rights abuses and keep events in North Africa on the international agenda;
- To achieve equal rights for marginalized groups, with a focus on women.
World Press Photo managing director Michiel Munneke said: “We are thrilled that the Dutch Postcode Lottery has recognized the potential of this project and how it can deliver direct benefits for journalists in an exciting period of change. Free exchange of information is central to the missions of World Press Photo and Human Rights Watch. World Press Photo will contribute to this project with an extended network of high-quality visual journalists, both within North Africa and worldwide, in support of a fair and balanced documenting of events in North Africa.”
World Press Photo and Human Rights Watch have already recently collaborated by launching the Tim Hetherington Grant – in memory of visual journalist killed in Libya in March 2011 – and to support a photographer in completing an existing project on a human rights theme.