About Open Minds

Open Minds Pakistan is IWPR’s first youth-focused project. It provides journalism training to young people aged 10-19 in Pakistani schools and madrassas, and gives them opportunities to discuss, debate and publish reports on current affairs. The project began in early 2009 and currently works in 42 schools in a variety of areas of Pakistan, including the Swat valley and the country’s largest city, Karachi. During training, participants publish their work in national and international media, and compare views online with other trainees from around Pakistan.

The schools are a mixture of religious (madrassas), public and low-fee charity schools, in both rural and urban areas. The project’s three-stage training course broadens students’ horizons, introducing them to national and global issues. In addition to classroom training, internet access is provided to participant schools enabling students to interact with the project website http://openminds.org.pk/.

Aims

The project is designed to encourage young people to turn away from views that support violence, by giving them:

• knowledge about political and social issues, to enable them to form their own opinions free from prejudice.
• analytical and discussion skills to help them develop confidence in expressing themselves clearly.
• the capacity to influence by publishing their reports in national newspapers, reducing feelings that violence is the only way to make a difference to their lives and communities.
• a chance – through the internet – to compare their views with a wide range of other young people from different schools in Pakistan, and with Muslim youth from other countries.

Activities

Open Minds is working with professional Pakistani journalists, who carry out the training with a select group of about 25 students in each school, and with Pakistani media organisations who publish print, audio and video content produced by trainees as part of their training.

The project works with local NGOs who run fortnightly discussion clubs – with around 70 participants – in each school, open to all students.

As well as these two main activities, the project:

• holds online discussions following each discussion club, to allow students to compare their views with other schools and with students from other countries.
• organises competitions for the best student articles, which will be published in several languages on international websites.
• offers internships at Pakistani media outlets to the most talented students.

Funding

The project is funded by the UK Foreign Office.

If you would like more information about the project, please contact Ella Rolfe at ellar@iwpr.net

If you would like to support IWPR's work in Pakistan please contact Ria Burghardt, IWPR Development Director at ria@iwpr.net

http://openminds.org.pk/