On 10 and 11 November 2016, Reporters Without Borders organised a training in physical security for 19 Afghan journalists in Kabul with the support of ProtectDefenders.eu. The training gathered journalists, majority of them working as war reporters for local and national media and among them 4 women, from 13 provinces of Afghanistan.
The training focused on four different topics, based on RSF’s guide to security for journalist, translated and edited for this occasion in Pashtun and Dura:- Physical security; How to prepare a report and assure that all security measures are being respected; How to react to a kidnapping, or extreme situation and protection measures: How to deal with post-trauma and psychological impact.
Each session was divided between a theoretical part and workshops with practical exercises. The methodology of the training was based on the ‘training of the trainer’ approach, as the objective was that the trainees could then form their colleagues. So far, two additional trainings have been organised. At the end of the two-days, one journalist confided “you think you already know all the security rules to protect yourself as a journalist, but you don’t, this training was eye-opening and very useful”.
