FESOJ held Panel Discussion with disabled journalists, media owners and managers in Mogadishu City, Somalia
Mogadishu, Thursday, July 6, 2023: The Federation of the Somali Journalists (FESOJ) has held today a panel discussion debating on the challenges the disabled journalists are facing and deliberate on how to address those obstacles.
The panel event was held on July 6, 2023, at Sahafi Hotel in Mogadishu City, Somalia, with 30 persons in attendance.
The participants were journalists from various media houses, media managers, media associations, members of the trusted person committee and important members from the Somali Disable Journalists Union.
The panel discussion event is in connection with previous meetings held with the disabled journalists and subsequent gatherings convened with the media owners and managers discussing and assessing the overall priority needs for the disabled Somali journalists.
“We have held training and meeting with the disable journalists and media directors focusing on the overall situation of the disable journalists and now our intention with this panel discussion is to deliberate on the challenges the disable journalists are facing and deliberate on the recommendations issued on how to address those obstacles.” Farah Omar Nur, Secretary General of FESOJ stated in his opening remarks.
The panel discussion debate lead by Mohamed Mohamud Adde , senior journalists as a moderator and five panelists consisting of two media managers, the chairperson of the Somali Disable Journalists Association (SODJA) and two female journalists studying sign language to communicate with the hearing-impaired journalists during the panel discussion debate process.
The key agenda for the panel discussion event was covering the key points, including working conditions of disabled journalists, problems they face at the duty station and outside the workplace, how they cope with these problems, what recommendations could be made to address these obstacles.
During the debate proceeding, the deliberation highlighted the challenges the disabled journalists are experiencing, including that the media directors have no trust that the disabled journalists could work, and are not receiving equal salaries compared with the able journalists, and do not receive sufficient capacity building training program as other journalists as well.
The other challenges mentioned included that the disabled journalists are less employed and lack the necessary equipment’s facilitate their journalistic works, lack role of leadership at the decision-making table and are working in a difficult and risky environment.
During the panel discussion, the valuable recommendations made include encouraging media directors to have trust in the work of disabled journalists, improving their professional journalism skills and abilities, to give them equal employment and visibility opportunities, provide them with modern software equipment that the disable journalists could use, and safety training to improve their overall security.
The panel discussion event is part of program activities funded by the EU, supported by Free Press Unlimited (FPU) and implemented by FESOJ in cooperation with VIKES.
