Category Archives: Posts by country

APJC 2015

  • Fellows and Fasilitators of APJC Training (Photo courtesy of APJC)

    Fellows and Fasilitators of APJC Training (Photo courtesy of APJC)

    I am here in Melbourne with 16 other colleagues from Indonesia, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Timor Leste and my own country Solomon Islands for the Asia Pacific Journalism training 2015. It has been quite an experience learning new information, meeting new people and adapting slowly to the cold weather. For the past two weeks we’ve been getting to know from our very expert presenters about leadership, reporting on the economy, and now mobile journalism! We’ve been learning from each other as well. It’s been exciting! We are heading to Canberra this Sunday so there’s more to come! I am certainly looking forward to it. Bring it on APJC!! Tagio tumas! 👍👍👍

 

Multicultural education in West Kalimantan, Indonesia

Dian Lestari, Indonesian journalist

I am a coordinator of West Kalimantan Journalist’s Association for Diversity a.k.a in Bahasa Indonesia is Serikat Jurnalis untuk Keberagaman (Sejuk) Kalimantan Barat. This organization form in Jakarta since 2008 and at Pontianak branch since 23 February 2014. Besides journalists, Sejuk member is academicians and NGO’s activist.

Sejuk (www.sejuk.org) focus on issue about human rights, gender equality, tolerance of religion and journalism is very important in my province, wich has witnessed 14 episodes of ethnic-based violence from 1962 to 2000.

I want to promote multicutural education as the best way to spread peace and to dispel ethnic tensions and suspicions. Now I am doing research with Gadjah Mada University Jogjakarta, about impact of multicultural education at junior high school in West Kalimantan.

Safety Travel Around Melbourne

I have been in Melbourne for  two weeks attending the APJC training program. It is excited to be here, the most live-able city in the world. I am lucky to be the first Person With Disability (PWD) who attend this training. This is a good opportunity for me and other PWD in Indonesia to learn how accessibility in every sectors being implemented.

In Melbourne I often go around walking, errr actually I walk by wheelchair. I found that the driver respects pedestrians. Usually they will stop their vehicles and let us across the road safely. In some places there are crosswalk lights so pedestrians have time to across the road.

As a bus passenger I feel comfortable since I can access it easily. Every bus in the city is equipped with ramp. Bus driver will stop properly at the bus stop and provides the ramp for me. The bus has two spaces at the front side for the passenger using wheelchair.

You know, I can’t access buses in Indonesia. Drivers often don’t stop the buses properly, so this would be very dangerous for me and other vulnerable groups such as elderly, pregnant woman and etc.

However buses in Melbourne with access for wheelchair rider are not really safe, unlike in the USA. There is no seat belt for wheelchairs nor wheelchair riders. So when I am in the bus a friend has to keep me safe, because sometimes my front wheel moves, even though I already lock the brake. I actually am so lucky to have good friends, isn’t it?

 

Team Simbu bike riders take time out at Sipaia beach

Team Simbu bikers at Sipaya beach, Morobe Province

Team Simbu motorbikes at Sipaya beach front on Saturday November 15, 2014.

It took almost three nights to get from Simbu down to Lae to support as part of the Team Simbu contingent to the 6th PNG Games staged in Lae, Morobe province.

18 bikers in the true spirit of support towards their team braved the long and winding journey and had to refill twice before reaching the games’ host city.

One of the bikers Michael spoke briefly about his trip saying the initial 35 bikers was reduced to 18. The whole trip consumed over 60 litres of fuel with a few stops along the way.

The team said the weather in Lae was much warmer and windy compared to Simbu.

Lae hosts 6th PNG Games

Lae the second capital city of Papua New Guinea played host to the country’s 6th PNG Games to over 1, 000 in various sporting codes.

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Balloons released at Sir Ignatius Kilage stadium in Lae during the official opening ceremony of 6th PNG Games

The opening ceremony was hosted at the Sir Ignatius Kilage stadium where tickets ran out before the actual opening ceremony. Crowds lined up outside the stadium to catch a glimpse of the grand entrance by all provincial teams as their graced the afternoon with their provinical colours.

The PNG Games takes place every two years and a host province gets to host with the aim of identifying sporting talents from rural areas who take in these national sports event. From this event talented Papua New Guineans are selected and get the chance of being selected to represent PNG in international sporting events such as Commonwealth and Olympics.

Many people braved the intense heat just to see their favourite band Jokema perform live alongside Australian female artist Christian Anu and local artists in the likes of Anslom Nakikus and Keidumen.

Tickets sold out and forced these people to stand outside find every space to watce the 6th PNG Games in Lae

Crowds outside Sir Ignatius Kilage stadium outside official fence after tickets ran out before official opening ceremony

Present during the opening ceremony were senior government officials, games committee and other invited guests including PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neill. Continue reading

Journalists from four countries share mining stories

Ngurah Rai Airport was crowd that night. The weather was quite cold. Many foreigners, let me guess most of them are tourists, occupied the airport located in southern Bali on that Saturday night, August 24, 2013. I was a part of a little Indonesian there, and not a tourist. 

I was going to Melbourne, Australia, for participating in Media, Mining, and Development program organized by Asia Pacific Journalism Centre. My departure flight was from Adi Sucipto Airport, Yogyakarta, and transited in Ngurah Rai to get international flight to Melbourne.

My flight from Bali to Melbourne lasted six hours. I arrived in Tullamarine Melbourne Airport at 9 AM, Sunday morning—time in Australia three hours faster than in Indonesia. The weather is very cold for me as I am used to live in tropic country like Indonesia.

I am one of the six participants from Indonesia on the program that involves eleven participants from Indonesia, Papua New Guinea (PNG), Fiji, and Solomon. All of them are young journalists, mostly have interest in mining and business issues.

There are invested a lot of mining investments in those developing countries recently. As mining industries will impact many things–social, economics, politics, and ecology–it is important for journalists that have interest in mining or business to know well how to report issues around mining industries.

The program will run for a month–started on August 26 and will be closed on Sept 27 and takes place in Melbourne, Brisbane, and Sydney. On the first day program, Erik Eklund, a Professor History at Monash University, presented a brief story of mining in Australia and his idea about mining issue in Asia-Pacific. He highlighted a small scale mining as one of important mining issue in Asia-Pacific. In this session, eleven journalists share their knowledge on mining in each country.

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On the following days eleven journalists get quality personal exploration for improving professional work from Suzy Woodhouse a leadership and management trainer. In this session, they share their each personal character and experiences in workplace as journalist closely. Suzy gives them some insights how to encourage personal character in professional work. As most of them mentioned, mining industry is closed industry then journalists get difficult to get data whereas the main duty of journalist is collecting data. Thus, journalists based on mining issues have to have strong self confidence.

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After encouraged by the session with Suzy in the first week, the program continued with the reporting mining and resources workshop with Nigel McCarthy, an economic journalist who has worked in Britain and Australia. In this session, difficulty in obtaining information from mining company shared by participants increasingly sharp. Nigel highlighted the importance of statistical information in mining stories and exemplified that journalist could obtain statistical information from annual report of company. This session was opened by explanation of global capitalism as the context of mining industries. Nigel mentioned mining business as “shonky business”.

Mining industries in four countries where participants of the program from have mostly similar stories. Mining could have positive effect in increasing economic development as it has adverse effects in decreasing environment quality, both horizontal and vertical conflict, and generally what we call Dutch Disease or resource curse.

Journalist and media are significant actors that have important role for society escaping from resource curse. How you report and write mining stories, guys?