Workshop on Countering Violent Extremism concludes

Lahore : The concluding ceremony of a seven-day training workshop on Countering Violent Extremism was held here at the Information Service Academy on Sunday.

The workshop was organized by Ministry of Information, Broadcasting, National History and Literary Heritage with an aim to provide front-line professional media product development training with a deeper understanding of the violent extremism and terrorism and the role of media in countering it.

Additional Secretary, Ministry of Information, Broadcasting, National History and Literary Heritage, Shafqat Jaleel was the chief guest on the occasion.

Addressing the participants, Shafqat Jaleel expressed the hope that the representative students of various universities would disseminate whatever knowledge they had obtained during the workshop.
“You are our future journalists and I’m really encouraged to see your dedication. You are lucky enough to intermingle with each other and share your experiences with each. I’m confident this will help you a lot in the days to come,” he said.

He said the workshop was aimed at educating the students to portray reality and report the events truthfully. He said the government of Pakistan was working on esteemed national policies on de-radicalization and on combating violent extremism in all its forms. He said the project ‘Pakistan Peace Collective’ under which the workshop took place, had began years back to address these issues through research and communication strategies.

Over 30 students of media studies from a wide range of universities, including Quetta, Karachi, Gilgit-Baltistan, Bahawalpur, Lahore, Malakand, Peshawar, Islamabad and Rawalpindi attended the workshop.

During the different sessions of the works, the trainers’ approach consistently relied on different case studies. A platform was developed for sharing good practices for supporting the creation of Counter Violent Extremism (CVE) media products.

Some case studies including Faizabad sit-in issue, short interview with Inayatullah Tiger (the constable in bomb disposal unit of KP Police) were used to apply theory to existing and diversified contexts.

The different phases of the workshop focused on media, social and religious narratives on terrorism and extremism, media perception on terrorism, story visualization and development, script production and practical project on short profile production.

On the other hand, participants also contributed their experiences in interactive session with regard to their regional diversities and issues.