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Tribune News Network
Doha
QATAR-BASED journalists selected by the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) have received expert training in mental health journalism at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, the US, as part of the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism (RCJF) programme.
Journalists who formed the inaugural cohort of participants from Qatar in September 2016 were invited back to the Carter Center for this year's RCJF gathering, which ran from September 11 to 13. They were joined by one of the two new Qatar-based programme participants who will spend the coming year developing a range of stories that highlight issues relating to mental health.
The RCJF programme was established by former US First Lady Rosalynn Carter in 1996. Since then, it has provided journalists around the world with valuable insights into mental health, offering opportunity for participants to improve public understanding of mental health issues and help reduce the discrimination faced by people with mental illnesses.
The year-long programme was brought to Qatar in 2016 as a result of a partnership between WISH and The Carter Center. WISH's involvement with The Carter Center was first discussed in March 2015, when former US President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter travelled to Doha and met with representatives from WISH. During the meeting, areas of potential collaboration to achieve the shared goal of advancing mental health policy were explored. The Carter Center subsequently invited WISH to select a number of journalists to take part in the programme.
Commenting on the collaboration with WISH, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter said:"We are delighted to work with the World Innovation Summit for Health to provide training and support for journalists in Qatar who seek to produce in-depth and accurate reporting of mental health issues and who share our desire to destigmatize mental illnesses. Too often we only hear about mental health in the news following a crisis or a tragic event. Yet, every day millions of people around the world living with mental illnesses go to work, care for their children, and contribute to their communities. They are valuable members of society, and their stories deserve to be told."
The first cohort of fellows from Qatar Tarek Bazely, Buthaina al Janahi, Aney Mathew and Kathy Hearn travelled to Atlanta in September 2016, where they received advice and training from experts in the field and gave details of mental health journalism projects they planned to undertake during the year of their fellowships. They returned to Atlanta this month to give presentations to the former US First Lady on the work they'd undertaken to highlight mental health issues since joining the programme, as well as to the programme's task force members, and advisory board.
The two new fellows who have joined the 2017-18 programme are Jawahir al Naimi, assistant producer at Al Jazeera English, and Samira Barre, a freelance writer and filmmaker who is also co-founder of Hersare Foundation, a Somali NGO supporting vulnerable and neglected people in Somalia and the Horn of Africa. Barre was able to travel to this year's gathering in Atlanta despite Hurricane Irma, which curtailed the plans of many of those from around the world planning to attend.
Naimi did not travel to Atlanta but joined the meeting via video conference and spoke of her plans to use her fellowship year to raise awareness in Qatar about post-partum depression and in particular to identify the social factors that prevent mothers from seeking help.
Sultana Afdhal, acting Chief Executive Officer of WISH, accompanied the Qatar-based fellows to Atlanta.
