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Myanmar adventure: Media and Hope

bjoern — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 04:30:44 +0000

After I finally socialised with Singapore and my new beloved home in Southeast-Asia and thought I will get bored soon the “Myanmar Writers and Journalists Association” invited me from 20th until 24th July to a training-course for young journalists from private and state-owned media. That invitation was totally exeptional as Myanmar was not inviting any foreign journalist after their “Saffron Revolution” in 2007 and after some official visits I really got the visa and was together with an American colleague the first foreign journalists conduction a training-course inside the country.

After the one-week course, where I managed to see more than 50 young journalists in the training and around 250 young activists from the civil society, I was amazed by their hospitality and mood. As there will be elections in 2010 especially young people prepare for that “window of opportunity” and realise at the moment that the administration is opening up channels for cooperation. Therefore I was more than happy to train journalists, which had never before any formal training – as the last journalism faculty closed thirty years ago. And I realised that you can read a lot about the country in our foreign media, scientific books and talks with people outside the country but it is very worth to experience the country before you finally make up your mind and paint all black and white. I realised that there is much grey and opportunities inside the country although the country is still a military junta with no democratic elements. But I was happy to assist with journalism experiences and skills and believes that such cooperation can assist their people. Attached you find an article, that I wrote in German for the journalism-magazine “M”, which explaines my experiences and introduces in the media landscape of Myanmar. I hope to be back soon to experience again the people and their country, which was an amazing adventure for me.

Article: Myanmar Challenges in journalism

Kuala Lumpur or Singapore?

bjoern — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 08:14:44 +0000

After arriving back to Singapore without any university-pressure nor any other voluntary engagement I started to look seriously into job-offers, specially in governance and media in the region. As there were not so many opportunities I was more than lucky to receive different offers and went last week even to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia (see pictures from the great city attached) to speak with a regional media-programme, which is working as well in Myanmar. The offered tasks and challenges were really great and so the decision was not easy but I decided finally to stay in Singapore and enjoy my private life over here. And I started yesterday working as consultant for the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre for their projects in Asia and a fulltime job will hopefully follow until end of this month.

Additionally like to work as a journalist from here, as you see with this article about a “well-known Bavarian woman in Singapore” and have fun with colleagues, that publish the view out of my window in their media. And the time until Â´real workÂ´ starts wonÂ´t be wasted as well: I booked flights to Vietnam in two weeks and afterwards Australia and enjoy this freedom of freetime a lot.

My published articles from Africa

bjoern — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:51:47 +0000

Since several years I was just organising journalism workshops, trainings and congresses on German and European level and build up even networks in Jordan and Afghanistan but I lacked always the time to constantly write own articles. That changed here in Africa and I took the chance to experience work as foreign correspondent with the problems of lacking space for African topics, uninterested editorial teams and low budgets but I had amazing fun and so far published these articles in diverse media, even IRINNews from UN took one on board and its gonna be some more in next days:

M-Magazin: Aids Kodex vereinbart
epd-medien: Medien starten gemeinsamen HIV-Kodex
Berliner Journalisten: Erfolgreicher Kampf
IRIN News (UN): Botswana to close its Harare embassy
Baltische Rundschau: Gewerkschaftsbund kÃ¤mpft fÃ¼r mehr SolidaritÃ¤t in Botsuana
Baltische Rundschau: Botswana decided to close embassy in Harare
African Times: Yellow is the colour of hope
Afrika-Post: Medien in Botsuana – Gemeinsam fÃ¼r mehr Respekt