The Syrian Women’s Authority, in partnership with the Stabilization Support Unit, organized a two-day media training in the Turkish city of Gaziantep in the framework of a project to empower Syrian women in the areas of politics and media. The training targeted female media students and media activists.
The training hosted Mr. Celal Demir, Director of the House of Arab Media Persons, Dr. Hamza Mustafa, Director of Syria TV, and Ruba Habboush, SOC’s Vice President and Head of the Women’s Authority.
Mr. Demir presented an overview on the Arab media experience in Türkiye, especially its significant impact, pointing to the presence of the largest number of Syrian media professionals and the need to unify their work and frame them to achieve the desired goal and impact. He also discussed with the trainees the hate speech on social media and its impact on society, as well as the campaigns targeting women and their negative impact. He stressed the important role of journalists in confronting these campaigns.
On the second day of the training course, Dr. Mustafa gave an overview on the reality of media post the Syrian revolution, ways to direct media discourse, new theories in social sciences, and journalistic work and its new knowledge tools. He also talked about the position that women have reached in the Syrian media despite the societal and political challenges in order to freely convey their voice and be effective and influential in decision-making centers.
For her part, Habboush stressed the importance of enacting laws regulating women’s work and framing their activities in new frameworks that contribute to finding their position in public affairs, away from stereotyping their media and other work. She pointed out that the Syrian Women’s Authority is avidly seeking to empower Syrian women and help them engage in political work and public affairs and to highlight their potential and their abilities to contribute to building a state of democracy, justice and law. (Source: SOC’s media department)
