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Supporting Somali journalists in exile
Josh LaPorte and Marjan Tillmans, longtime media development project leaders at the EJC, met recently with the directors of the Hayaan Media Development Center, Abdullahi Jama Ali and Abdiweli Ibrahim Aden.
The Hayaan Media Development Center (HMDC) is a new nonprofit dedicated to improving the experience of Somali journalists in Europe and east Africa. 
The meeting, in Utrecht, was held to discuss support for refugee Somali journalists based in the Netherlands as well as their colleagues working under harsh and almost impossible conditions in their homeland. Much overlap was discovered between EJC’s core media development goals in Africa and those journalists HMDC reaches out to regularly inside Somalia. A number of possible joint fundraising opportunities were discussed, as well as integrating Somali journalists into future EJC practical reporting seminars planned in neighboring Kenya.
A key part of the discussion concerned the Exiled Journalists Network (EJN) based in London, and the possibility of building networks with HMDC and an organisational structure based on the EJN’s successful model.
From an article on Hayaan’s website about the meeting:
“The general director of Hayaan Media Development Center Abdullahi Jama Ali detailed about the insecurity problem in which the journalists work inside Somalia and their needs to be supported on the side of upgrading their professionals.
He sees the meeting with EJC as profitable and helpful to the continuation of the activities relating to energizing of Media doings.
The senior project manager Media Development of the European Journalism Center Josh LaPorte welcomed the briefings given praising HMDC’s efforts towards Media Development in Somalia regarding it as the appropriate and timely organization that has the capacity to maintain such greater media tasks in east Africa region.”
Posted on January 25, 2010 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Filed under development.