The OSCE Centre in Ashgabat hosted a two-day training course aimed at training instructors in media and information literacy. The event was attended by representatives of the national media of Turkmenistan and a number of agencies involved in the implementation of the National Human Rights Action Plan for 2021-2025.
The in-depth course was conducted by invited international experts – Deputy Director of the International Center for Journalism MediaNet and Editor-in-Chief of Facktcheck.kz Duman Smakov (Kazakhstan), as well as co-founder of facktcheck.tj and media trainer Rustam Gulov (Tajikistan). The experts shared their experience in organizing and conducting effective trainings on media and information literacy.
The head of the OSCE Center in Ashgabat, Ambassador John McGregor, emphasized that media literacy remains one of the key priorities of the organization for several years, and this training was a logical continuation of previous events. These efforts are aimed at the practical implementation of the provisions of the national plan of actions in the field of human rights regarding the freedom of the media and the freedom of expressions.
It should be noted that the OSCE consistently is working in this direction. In 2022, the first group of national trainers was prepared, who successfully conducted training for their colleagues on the rights and responsibilities of journalists. In 2023, a training course took place for representatives of the media and relevant institutions with the aim of mastering the skills of media literacy. In 2024, the efforts were focused on the training of instructors, which made it possible to create another reserve of national trainers for further teaching media literacy among colleagues.
Within the framework of the project “Promoting Media and Information literacy in the OSCE member states”, the OSCE Bureau for Media Liberty in 2024 also published a report on increasing literacy in the field of media freedom in the OSCE region, which was presented to the training participants.
The final stage in the training of new experts was the solemn presentation of certificates.
