Capt P.M.Pradhan , Chief Guest addressing the Trainees and audience

THREE DAY LONG WORKSHOP ON JOURNALISM HELD

Kalimnews, Kalimpong, 23 Aug : 27 would be Journalists completed a three days’ workshop organized by Kalimpong Press Club. Certificates were distributed to the participants of the workshop by Alvin Lama, Director of Good Shepherd Institute of Hospitality Management on 23rd August during the closing ceremony of the Workshop in Sub Divisional Library. Several speakers spoke on the success of the programme.

It is recalled that three day long Workshop on Journalism was inaugurated at Sub-Division Library on 20 August. The function was attended by Captain (Retd) Prakash Mani Pradhan, Director, Rockvale Academy as chief guest who congratulated Kalimpong Press Club, the organizer of the workshop for holding the programme and viewed that it was not only the responsibility of the Club to organize such society oriented programmes but also the duties of concerned citizens to act for the cause of the society. He also appealed the youths of the hills to concentrate in specialized fields of report writing and make efforts to expose themselves in the national mainstream journalism. Alvin Lama, Director, Good Shepherd Institute of Hospitality Management also echoed Pradhan’s view and said that the media personnels should guide the society in time of the need. The inauguration session was also addressed by Moti Prashad Sharma a columnist and Samsher Ali a prominent social activist.

In the afternoon session Kumar Chhetri, Ex-Professor, Kalimpong College addressed the trainee journalists who had come from all walks of the sub-division. In his session Chhetri gave basic concept of the journalism while Punu Lucksom, Audio-Video Engineer delivered speech on the technical prospects in the media particularly pertaining to photography and videography.

All the thirty participants were imparted with various useful training ranging from the subjects like field journalism, regional journalism, electronic media and web media, legal aspects of the journalism by resource persons including free lancer Hira Chhetri, President of Sikkim Press Association Parasmani Dangal, Photo Journalist from Guwahati Nanda Kirati Dewan and Senior Advocate and Secretary, Kalimpong Bar Association Prabhakar Dewan. Executive Member of Kalimpong Press Club Kalyan Thapa presented the paper on behalf of Web Journalist Barun Roy.

According to Umesh Tamang, Co-ordinator of the Workshop, the last day’s session included field training for which all the participants were divided into different groups of three members each and assigned to undergo practical training for about three hours. On completion of all the sessions the participants were awarded certificates of merit during the closing ceremony, he added. Tamang has expressed thankfulness to all the concerned personalities and organizations of Kalimpong who came forward to extend possible assistance to the Club in organizing the programme.

It may be recalled that Kalimpong Press Club organized the three day long Workshop on Journalism as a part of monthly programmes on its completion of ten years of existence. The club has decided to organize various programmes throughout the year 2009 to commemorate the occasion. It has also organized Quiz of Senior Citizens, Chess Tournament etc. in recent past.

Pinky Pradhan receives Atlas Services Corps. Fellowship

Nanda Kirati Dewan, Guwahati: Ms. Pinky Pradhan of Jatia, Kahilipara, Guwahati has been awarded the prestigious Atlas Service Corps. Fellowship for the year 2009-2010.She will be based in Washington DC , USA and will serve Population Action International, one of the leading NGOs of USA as a Resource Development Fellow. She has been shortlisted among 500 applicants from 65 countries around the world. Pinky is currently with United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Regional Office for South Asia as a Communications and Advocacy Officer. She did her graduation from Cotton College and her post graduation from Indian Institute of Mass Communications in New Delh. Pinky is the wife of Prania Bora and daughter of Diganta kumar Adhikari.

Pinky has nearly eight years of experience in non-profit as well as corporate sector in India and the South Asia region. Her core skills are communication, networking and partnership, advocacy and project management. Since 2007, Pinky has been working with United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Regional Office for South Asia. During her term, Pinky assisted the Office in mainstreaming and addressing its mandates. She has also closely worked with the South Asian media, parliamentarians, corporates, civil society and advocacy groups. Along with a media advocacy group, she helped set up the National coalition of Nepali journalists and artistes against human trafficking in Nepal. She has also been involved in sensitizing journalists from the South Asian (SA) region on rights based reporting. She played a critical role in mobilizing and building the capacity of 140 grassroots level NGOs on drugs and HIV/AIDS prevention. Pinky also has the experience of working with marginalized communities and women groups of backward states of India such as Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Orissa among others. Her previous assignments have been with WWF-India, NERCRMP-IFAD and E, lexicon.

Pinky is voluntarily associated with Development Consortium, an NGO that works on development issues, National Media Coalition against Gender Violence, Human Trafficking and HIV/AIDS (media group which promotes rights based reporting in the SA region) and Dishoooom.com, which provides a platform for citizen voice, action and journalism. Pinky holds a B.A. from Cotton College, Assam, India, and a postgraduate degree in advertising and public relations from the Indian Institute of Mass Communications in New Delhi.

Pinky is very passionate about working on the cause of poverty alleviation coupled with other major issues such as human trafficking and empowerment of women and children and their inclusive growth. She had an inclination about lending her voice and support to social issues from a very early age. As a student, during her school and college years, she was actively involved in community service that included taking part in campaigns such as environment conservation, peace walk among others. She was also mentoring the non-formal education of two children from migrant communities in her neighborhood. Through debates and public forums, she raised her voice on good governance and development of the marginalized.

Her professional engagement with the non-profit sector began while she was working with an advertising agency which had some clients from the non profit sector, including the government department. It gave her an opportunity to see the important role that communication practitioners could play. She began looking for opportunities of working with an NGO especially from the Northeastern region. She was very lucky to get selected as a Communications Officer with a project that worked for poverty alleviation of tribal people in the Northeast. The project was supported by International Fund for Agricultural Development and Government of India. The project was implemented in three states : Assam, Manipur and Meghalaya and during her engagement with the project, she got to understand the concept of development, community empowerment and mobilization, importance of groups such self help groups, livelihood skills, natural resource management, gender , micro finance and credit among others.

During her tenure, she interacted extensively with community and women leaders and witnessed their empowerment through the formation of self help groups. She used the communication tools progressively and witnessed how it became a medium for the communities to interact, market their products and voice themselves.

After serving the project for a year, she returned back to Delhi and joined World Wide Fund for Nature-India (WWF-India), an international NGO working in the area of environment conservation, as their Communication Officer. She assisted the organization in executing and leveraging its campaigns, fund raising events and engagement with the media. She was later promoted to the position of Manager Corporate Communications and Partnerships and was primarily responsible for raising funds for the organization through corporate engagement. She conceptualized campaigns such as ‘Adopt a plant’ and was successful in mobilizing 3000 people to be a part of it. Thereafter, she joined United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.