In this installment of our Journalists@Work series, we talked to Ljubomir (Leo) Gatdula, a TV producer and reporter from the Philippines. Leo participated in two DW Akademie workshops in 2009, which both dealt with online journalism and web 2.0. The first one was held in Macau, the follow-up workshop took place in Bonn, Germany.

These days, Leo works for People’s Television, which is owned by the Philippine government. In this blog post, he gives us some insight into his work as a journalist in the Philippines.

In many societies, people with disabilities are pushed aside – be they mentally challenged or physically impaired. Some of them have to beg for money in the streets, others stay out of sight or are even locked away.

In Cambodia, the country’s Disability Action Council (DAC) estimates that nearly five percent of the population of 14.9 million people is disabled. According to the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), Cambodia’s high disability rates can be attributed to three main factors:
• “past war casualties
• the ongoing risk of mines,
• the lack of prevention and primary care for various disabling diseases.”

The Cambodian media don’t often deal with the lives of the disabled. One reason may be shyness or ignorance on the part of the journalists about the life of people with disabilities. But two recent television training workshops have helped improve the way journalists portray people with disabilities in the media. They were jointly organized by DW Akademie, Germany’s GIZ and the Women’s Media Centre of Cambodia.

Six Indian journalists have taken stock of their seven-week fellowship at DW Akademie in Bonn. The Meeting and Exchange Project Grow.Green.India, financed by the Robert Bosch Stiftung, not only changed their image of Germany, but also provided them with new inspiration and ideas: for their country, for their journalistic work and – not least – for their own contributions for a “sustainable” future of our planet. Click on the pictures to see the videos.

The Indian fellows proudly presented their certificates at the end of their stay

The multimedia site “grow.green.india” is the productive result of the Meeting and Exchange Project for Indian Journalists, which has just wrapped up in Bonn. For seven weeks, six journalists from across India enjoyed intense training in multimedia journalism and had ample opportunity to produce their own reports for the site.

In Indonesia, like in many Asian countries, the production of palm oil is a contentious issue. On the one hand, palm oil plantations and the palm oil industry create jobs and income. On the other hand, there are controversial land issues involved. Environmentalists criticize the disastrous effects huge palm oil plantations have on biodiversity.

The media can play a decisive role in structuring the debate and making arguments more transparent for the public. In Indonesia, one of the key players in this debate is the NGO SAWIT Watch Indonesia. Its Programme Director Rahmawati Retno Winarni discussed the relationship between the Indonesian media and organizations representing parts of civil society with DW Akademie’s Patrick Leusch.

This interview was recorded in front of a live audience during this year’s European Development Days in Brussels.