Children's media centre works for change

"It is the best opportunity we have to express ourselves," says Rustam Abykeev, a 17-year-old student-cum-journalist at the Children’s Media Centre (CMC) in the capital, Bishkek. "There are no other press outlets that deal with children’s issues and problems," adds his 15-year-old colleague, Anne Donenko. "[Through our reporting] we let other children see they are not alone." The CMC is the brain-child of Galina Gaparova, a determined woman who had previously been running a children's’ literature shop, where children wrote and illustrated their own high-quality books. Her life dream, she told IRIN, was always to "open my own children’s publishing house. [Starting and leading the CMC] is the total result of all of my dreams and work." The CMC currently has about 50 students, and anyone is welcome to join. It is a self-selecting group, says Gaparova, and while no one is ever required to be present, students often spend more than 20 hours a week there. All the children come from the Bishkek area, and usually stay at the CMC until they reach college age. International sponsorship Initially sponsored by the UK charity Save the Children in 1999, the CMC was established to help get Kyrgyzstan’s young people involved in journalism. "All we had was enthusiasm and nothing else," says Gaparova. "We had no idea what would happen." The CMC soon attracted the attention of United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), which had been working with CNN to develop student bureaus in seven countries around the globe. I regarded the CMC as a great candidate for this programme, which aims to ensure that children can express their views and access information in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Today, the CMC’s primarily 12- to 19-year-old students publish a bi-monthly magazine and produce video stories for both domestic and international audiences. Becoming a CNN Student Bureau significantly changed the CMC, both in terms of available resources and international exposure. The centre now houses some of the most modern video equipment in Bishkek, and the children have received training from CNN and Internews, an international NGO working to foster independent media in emerging democracies. This training is self-perpetuating, and peer-to-peer education is now a large part of the CMC's functions. Learning essential skills The children generally come to the centre at least twice a week, and are all responsible for developing their individual monthly work-plans at the beginning of each month. While there are few formal journalism lessons, the children often seek advice from fellow students and there is always a passing down of knowledge from the older to the younger generation. Bektour Sydykov, a 17-year-old university freshman who has been at the CMC for 10 months, says that the most important things he learned at the centre had been "how to write and structure articles and how to write a scenario for a TV story". "Before CMC," he said, "I didn't know what it was like to be a reporter. I didn't even know how to get an interview or shoot a video." Abykeev also says that the CMC has given him lots of practical experience in being a journalist. "Although there are some journalism programmes at Bishkek universities," he says, "there is very little hands-on training there." Seventeen-year old Anton Efromev agrees, saying that "the CMC is the only place I know where one can be taught how to use a camera." "The idea," says Marianne Ohlers, the assistant project officer at UNICEF responsible for the CMC, "is to help young kids get the skills to become good journalists. In the beginning, it was difficult for the kids to find and put together a good story, but they have learned well." A bi-monthly magazine The CMC’s bi-monthly magazine called "Skyscraper" is the most visible example of this. Funded by the Democratic Committee of the US embassy, and distributed free of charge throughout Bishkek, according to Gaparova, it is "the only magazine in Kyrgyzstan that is written and produced by kids". Adults make up a significant portion of "Skyscraper’s" readership. Gaparova says she welcomes this, because the mainstream media generally portray Kyrgyz youth in a negative way, which gives many adults a bad opinion of the next generation. "Most of the youth-targeted programmes on TV right now deal only with pop music," explains Donenko. "At the centre, we only write articles about our feelings and our thoughts." Becoming journalists Their involvement in the issues of the day have brought many of the students face to face with the dangers, influence, and vulnerabilities of being a journalist. Sydykov told IRIN that his team was threatened and chased while it was writing a story on child workers. "We were all very frightened," he says. "This was the first time that I realised how dangerous it is to be a journalist." Sixteen-year old Chengiz Narynov told IRIN that what he really appreciated about the centre was the fact that he could express himself there. "Compared with America," he said, "the right of people to express their opinions in Kyrgyzstan is very limited. The CMC allows me to help create the kind of society that I want in my life." Nuriya Djunushbekova, the 27-year-old coordinator of the CMC’s CNN Student Bureau said that in the course of researching a story, she and her team visited a home for orphans and abandoned children in an age range of up to four years. She and her colleagues were so touched, she said, that the team now goes to the home once a week just to visit the children. She has also recently participated in a conference to help these children, and organised a campaign to secure donations of warm clothing for the youngsters ahead of the winter months. "This highlights the difference between the adults' and the children's media," Gaparova observed. Adults just want to produce the news, while many child-journalists want to help find solutions to the problems they are reporting on." Teaching the UN Convention on children’s rights is also an important facet of the CMC. Ohlers says one of the centre’s goals is to help raise the level of social responsibility in young people to enable them to embark on highlighting the plight of children in Kyrgyzstan. In support of this, CMC students have several classes a month on the social, civil, political, and economic rights of minors. Everyone who wants to be part of the CMC must get training on the main principles of the Convention, according to Gaparova. CMC students have been asked by several local high schools to pass this training on to their children as well. Challenges ahead The CMC faces several challenges, one of which is its seemingly constant efforts to get its programmes broadcast. KTR, Kyrgyzstan’s state-run television channel, for example, has just recently begun to donate the twice-monthly airtime to the centre that it had promised several months ago. After initially approaching the CMC about producing a series of 25-minute programmes, the channel then demanded payment to broadcast them. Once the programmes finally got on the air, Djunushbekova told IRIN that the centre had received many calls from children wanting to join the CMC or to just offer congratulations. Getting its stories broadcast on CNN has also been a challenge for the CMC. Competition is fierce, and CNN Student News in Atlanta has accepted fewer than five of the CMC’s submissions. One observer told IRIN she believed the major structural changes currently taking place at CNN had impacted the student bureau project, perhaps leading the network to refocus its efforts. UNICEF’s Ohlers is very optimistic about the CMC’s future. One way the CMC can continue to make an impact in Kyrgyzstan, she says, would be to shift its focus more towards developing programmes for state TV. One mark of success, she says, "would be for the CMC to produce quality shows that concern young children for a nationally televised regular TV programme".