Power Solutions in Dili and in Oecusse

Electricity was a continuing theme during the month of October as city power interruptions in Dili created disruptions at ICFJ. The generator that ICFJ has used for the past four years is wearing out and no longer capable of handling the “load.” Translation: some computers and all air conditioners have to be turned off during the power interruptions. As a result, some staffers were unable to work.

With no funds to procure a new powerful generator, the goal was to find a low cost solution.

As part of the Escucha! Taking Community Radio Digital in the Americas program, ICFJ will offer two online courses in Spanish to train community radio journalists from Latin America and from Hispanic media in the US. The courses, each for 25 journalists, will incorporate the materials covered during the conference, which will extend the benefits of that training to a multitude of journalists who did not attend.

Part II of the citizen journalism workshop, organized by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) trains young Egyptian men and women who are non-professional journalists on how to cover many social, environmental and political issues. The workshop was surrounded by an atmosphere of calm and tranquility which some attributed to the administrative instability which the web portal IslamOnline.net (IOL) is now experiencing. This instability reflected negatively on the training sessions, which comes as no surprise since the workshop is being held at "Media International", which happens to be the owner of IOL.

“I am currently suffering from cancer and chronic allergic bronchitis which were caused by the fine powder and ceramic glaze that I have been working in my whole life,” reveals Khalil Gawda, who has been working for most of his life in the ceramics industry and was forced to work in the quarries at a young age as a means to provide for his mother and younger siblings after the death of his father.