Shannon Ryker | Feb. 19, 2009
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| Courtesy photo |
| Associate professor Jim Kelly’s workshops at Osmania University drew the attention of Hyderabad’s HMTV News. |
Only South Africa has more people living with HIV than India. Avert.org, an international HIV/AIDS charity, estimates that 2.4 million of India’s 1.1 billion citizens have the virus that causes AIDS.
Dec. 29 to Jan. 16, Kelly organized four, two-day workshops that brought together journalists and non-governmental organizations focused on HIV issues. Workshop participants learned the facts of HIV/AIDS and what is being done in their communities to combat the epidemic.
Kelly is co-director of the three-year project with Jyotika Ramaprasad, a journalism professor at the University of Miami. The workshops are funded through a grant from the Office of Education and Cultural Affairs within the U.S. Department of State.
At each of the workshops, Kelly and Ramaprasad paired the NGO workers with journalists.
"The NGO workers and the journalists focused on some HIV aspect," said Kelly. "The journalist then wrote a news story using the NGO worker as a source, and the American trainers then edited the stories and critiqued the reporting for the group."
The NGO workers came from a number of HIV/AIDS programs. Some work in clinics, helping educate the public about living with HIV/AIDS, while others provide mobile testing facilities. Some provide counseling and other support to those living with HIV.
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| Photo by Jim Kelly |
| Manoj Trikha, a reporter for Vadodara television station VNM-TV, discusses his story idea with other workshop participants. Each journalist at the workshop worked with an NGO staffer to research and report on a HIV related story. |
Once the stories are complete, the journalists submit them to Kelly. He and Ramaprasad will choose the best stories and invite the reporters to attend next winter’s regional conference on journalists’ reporting of HIV/AIDS in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Since they received the grant in 2007, Kelly and Ramaprasad have been overseas twice and plan to go two more times before the funding ends in 2010. Six south Asians visited Bloomington for a three-week workshop in the spring of 2008 and seven more will participate in a workshop in Miami this spring.
"Part of the grant is focused on what is called a citizens exchange," said Kelly. "We bring South Asians to American to see how we practice journalism and we take Americans to Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka so they can train journalists and so that they can learn about the region’s journalism."
On this winter’s trip, Kelly and Ramaprasad took two of Ramaprasad’s UM colleagues, former journalists Bruce Garrison and Joe Treaster.
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| Photo by Jim Kelly |
| Debarati Basu, reporter for The Indian Express newspaper, works with Bruce Garrison of the University of Miami’s College of Communication to edit a story Basu wrote about harassment of sex workers by police in the streets of Vadodara. |
"Professionally, seeing the dedication of the staff who work for the NGOs that address social issues is touching and inspiring," Ramaprasad said in an e-mail interview. And personally, she said she enjoys seeing her family when she has a chance to go to her home town of Vadodara.
Kelly said that these trips have helped him build close and lasting relationships with people across the region.
"Some of my best friends are people I have met on these projects," said Kelly. He and Ramaprasad have headed five similar projects since 1994.
Both Kelly and Ramaprasad said they would be interested in doing another grant like this after this current one ends.
"It is kind of like birthing children," said Kelly. "It is a lot of work, but in the end it’s worth it."
