As the Citizen Journalists should know...

Ms. Chim Manavy, Executive Director of Open Institute, Date: 27th March 2013 Photo: Open Institute Open Institute organized a training on "The Use of Information Communication and Technology (ICT) to Access and Disseminate Information" with the financial support of The Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions (SPIDER) from Sweden. 30 participants ( 14female, 16male ) attended including members of the Commune/Sangkat councilors from Phnom Penh, Battambang, Siem Reap and Kandal and youth representatives from Khmer Youth Association, Association for People Health Development, Khmer Youth and Social Development, Voice of Democracy and the Youth Resources Development Program. The training objectives were to promote the understanding of the commune councilors and youth about the use of Khmer computer applications, the ability to use the internet to search for, to write, disseminate and discuss information openly and more effectively. Moreover , to raise the awareness of the youth and commune councilors about media ethics, law and policies before they become the citizen journalists. The training was held at the Open Institute office from 27th -29th March 2013. 
 
Ms. Chim Manavy, Executive Director of the Open Institute, emphasized that the training is very important for Commune/Sangkat Councilors, and youth representatives to understand about ICT and how they are able to use it in order to serve the public benefits. "Even though we are not professional journalists, we still can share information/news through cutting-edge ICT technology on womens issues, traffic accidents, or fire" said Ms. Manavy . Moreover, she added that according to the general observation, youth are so active in using, posting and sharing information on social networking sites like facebook and twitter. The information dissemination is very broad. So that, everyone as the citizen journalists, should understand the media ethics, law in order, how to be more careful and prevent violence of dignity, morality of individual privacy especially​ to women and children, who are classified as vulnerable people.
 
Group picture of participants and trainer of the training on “The Use of ICT to Access and Disseminate Information” Date: 28th March 2013 Photo: Open Institute Before the training started, Ms. Kaing Sanary, project manager of Dialogue on Development, presented the general information of the training and project Dialogue on Development.
 
The training was conducted for three days. The first two days was facilitated by Mr. Chhay Sophal, the media professional trainer from Cambodia News. The trainees learned about differences between news and information, news article writing, photos and captions, editions, how to work well with the journalists, and the media ethics, law and policy to avoid the law suit and public complaints. On the third day of the training, the participants learned about Computer Applications, Khmer Open Office, Khmer Firefox, Email Accounts and Blog Set Up and Unicode Typing. It was facilitated by Mr. Mak Dara, Freelance Technical consultant in cooperation with Mr. Sok Sophea, Sofware Translator.
 
To be noticed that this is fifth training of the project Dialogue on Development.