Amman - The Jordan Media Institute (JMI), in cooperation with Media Diversity Institute, held a “Training of Trainers (TOT)” workshop on Media and Information Literacy (MIL) as part of the “Support to Media and Information Literacy Clubs in Public Schools” project, which is implemented by UNESCO and funded by the European Union.
The project aims at strengthening media and information literacy among youth through launching MIL clubs in 15 public schools in the governorates of Irbid, Zarqa and Ma’an. After the workshop’s completion, trainers are to supervise, train and follow-up with teachers in these clubs.
JMI Projects Manager, Nihad Jariri, said; “The workshop aims at building the capacities of trainers –who have experience in Media, Journalism, Information and Communication Technologies– with the tools needed to allow them to work with teachers on developing the concepts of Media and Information Literacy and on the ways needed for using media outlets at schools.”
Jariri also added that the participants will gain a better understanding on technologies and on transferring the knowledge they gained on media literacy, they will also have the ability to develop their own special education material and provide technical and knowledge support to other teachers.
Dalal Salameh, one of the participating journalists, said that her interest in the subject comes from her accumulative experience in education, journalism and media censorship. She also added that another reason would be her interest in the effect caused by the current large number of media outlets that share misleading information; “The most vulnerable group that gets affected by such misleading reports is the youth and that is why it is important to educate them on how to deal with these reports”.
Trainer Abdallah Jbour said; “The project targets young people in order to raise their awareness regarding content in the media and to strengthen their critical thinking and provide them with the necessary tools that help them deal with misleading information; especially rumors.
The project will conduct trainings for teachers from the governorates of Ma’an, Irbid and Zarqa who will be working on the launch of the Media Literacy Clubs at their schools.