Uluchay Social-Economic Innovation Center organized one week training program for youth on “Traditional and non-traditional journalism” within the Civic Awareness Program funded by National Endowment for Democracy on 30 August – 03 September, 2010.

One of the main aims of the course was to increase young people skills who were interested in citizen journalism. Other purpose was aspiring journalists and create a space where the youth and population of Sheki can gain political knowledge. After finishing courses participants will be  also involved in preparation of monthly newsletters for youth of Sheki.

Course was consist of different sessions -  kinds of news,  journalism ethics, an interview technique, blogs & blog platforms and social networking  - and participants acquired knowledge both theoretical and practical. Young people were taught the basics of journalism  in this training with the participation of alumnus of previous years of journalism component. About 17 youth participated in this training.

The participants of the program –Murad Karimov noted that it was the first time he participated at the Journalism training and he got  an importent experience during this training course and it will help him  in the future to be a good-educated citizen journalist.

At the end of the course  participants placed their stories in www.shekiblog.org. Each of participants was awarded with certificates in accordance distinction, active, succesfull and participant categories.  

We would like also to note that Civic Awareness Program objective are to educate youth on political, world and civic issues and expand their minds about situations outside of their communities; to boost political participation and civil awareness of youth in rural areas and create a place where they can speak their minds and take active roles in their community; to foster widespread youth interest in politics through journalism, modern information technologies and free press.  The “traditional and non-traditional journalism” training program is one of the companents of CAP. Another two components are  guest speaker sessions, documentary movie days and civic &  political trainings in rural areas.