Archive » Kelly wraps up HIV/AIDS reporting workshops in South Asia

Jessica Birthisel | Feb. 3, 2010

Courtesy photo

Associate professor Jim Kelly posed at the railway station in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, during his travels in January. He was in South Asia to lead workshops for journalists covering HIV/AIDS.

For the third consecutive year, associate professor Jim Kelly rang in the new year while implementing a series of South Asia workshops on reporting about HIV/AIDS.

The three workshops took place Jan. 1–10, with two-day events in Pune, India, and Islamabad, Pakistan, and one three-day workshop in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

This set of workshops marks the end of a three-year project Kelly has worked on with University of Miami School of Communication professor Jyotika Ramaprasad. A colleague of Ramaprasad’s, lecturer Ileana Oroza, also assisted with these most recent workshops.

The workshops, funded by the U.S. Department of State, are an effort to strengthen journalist’s ability to report on HIV/AIDS and are attended by journalists, nongovernmental organization (NGO) staffers and journalism educators.

Workshop participants receive information about journalistic practices with a particular focus the importance of multiple sources.

“Too often, stories in the developing world lack sufficient sourcing,” said Kelly. “Many stories on HIV/AIDS focus on NGO events. What we’re stressing is that you cover an issue and not the event. Use the NGOs as sources, rather than the topics.”

Kelly said the workshops highlight the importance of weaving the issue of HIV/AIDS into a larger tapestry of stories about a region’s culture, economy, politics, family relations, gender relationships and other social relationships.

“We try to stress that HIV/AIDs is not only a health story,” said Kelly.

Photo by Jim Kelly

Ileana Oroza of the University of Miami and former editor of the Miami Herald lectured to a class during a workshop. A lead trainer, Oroza was visiting South Asia for the first time.

Oroza, who was responsible for the journalistic training at the workshops, said she used her more than 20 years of experience at the Miami Herald to teach and refresh journalistic topics such as ethics, writing, sourcing and editing.

“I think that with journalists, not just in Asia but everywhere, some have more journalism training than others,” said Oroza in a telephone interview. “Sometimes it’s good to just go back to the basics. It gives them the opportunity to sit down, think about these things, and discuss them with their peers. I think it’s really invaluable.”

As Oroza explained, on-the-job journalists often have little-to-no time to step back and reflect on their practices.

Kelly said this year, he and fellow organizers recorded several workshops and plan to edit that footage into an instructional video to be distributed to all of the journalism, NGO and educational organizations who have been a part of the experience.

Kelly and Ramaprasad have been working together on journalist training initiatives for more than 15 years, but the latest initiative, HIV/AIDS reporting with an emphasis on NGOs, reflects what Ramaprasad described as “a long-held passion.” In earlier training efforts, Ramaprasad said she met with NGOs on the side to begin discussing their role in the process of reporting on HIV/AIDS.

As for the importance of this work in these regions, especially in Sri Lanka and Pakistan where the percentage of the population with HIV/AIDS is low, Ramaprasad said “a window of opportunity” exists for journalists to educate the public and reduce the number of new cases.

“Where the numbers are still low, if people act soon, much can be done,” said Ramaprasad in a telephone interview.

At the time the grant for the workshop was written, the estimated number of Indians infected with HIV/AIDS was 5.2 million. That number has since been reduced, but it led Ramaprasad to include the region in this round of workshops.

“At that time, the percentage was pretty scary,” said Ramaprasad, who explains that India and Russia are considered to leaders in what some call a second wave of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. “I still think there’s a lot of work to be done there. Because India has such a large population, even if it’s a small percentage, it’s still a large number of people.”

Kelly said in addition to the importance of the work in the region, South Asia is a sentimental destination for him and his colleagues.

“For me, it’s like going to see family,” said Kelly. “It’s like a family reunion.”

Photo by Jim Kelly

South Asian journalists attended the workshops to learn how to report stories about HIV/AIDS in their areas. Associate professor Jim Kelly and his colleagues led the workshops in early January.

On this trip, Kelly reunited with many former students, from the workshops and from his academic life. One of the Sri Lanka workshop participants was Farish Ullah from Islamia University, whom Kelly met on his first trip to Pakistan in 1995. Upon their reunion, Ullah invited Kelly to his home to enjoy a home cooked meal and to meet his family.

“The hospitality is overwhelming,” said Kelly. “What’s most surprising for people to hear after I return from one of these trips is that not only was I not in danger, I was in the most hospitable place I can imagine, a step above as hospitable as you can imagine.”

Though this series of workshops is now over, Kelly said he hopes to continue his work overseas. He said he’d like to do more workshops in Pakistan, but the logistics of getting such initiatives approved by the State Department have proven difficult. As part of a School of Journalism course, he’s scheduled to lead an HIV/AIDS reporting trip to Kenya in May.

With his daughter finishing high school, Kelly said he anticipates travel will slow down for awhile, but said it won’t stop.

“I just can’t imagine not visiting my friends,” he said.