On the ‘Crossroads’ in the Southern Caucasus: Gender Equality and Peace Building

 

To increase the understanding and capacity of media in the region around gender equality and women’s role in conflict prevention and peace building UNIFEM Regional Programme “Women for Conflict Prevention and Peace Building in the Southern Caucasus” recently launched a partnership with the Internews offices in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia for 2006.

 

For more than seven years, the Internews network in the region has produced the popular “Crossroads” TV programme aired every week on approximately 19 TV channels in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, reaching an estimated potential 12 million viewers in the region.

 

As one of the only regional TV initiatives in the Southern Caucasus, “Crossroads” offers an excellent opportunity to raise awareness among societies in three countries about women’s issues and peace-building and represents a solid background for expanding partnership between Internews, UNIFEM and the three “women for peace” networks which the UNIFEM project supports. 

 

Under the UNIFEM/Internews partnership, once a week there will be a 2-3 minute “gender segments”, which focus on country-specific gender issues, with the country covered rotating each week. In addition, once a month, there is a  programme on “women and peace-building” and conflict prevention.

 

Prepared in close cooperation with the UNIFEM-supported “women for peace” networks and under the framework of the Regional Coalition “Women for Peace”, the “Crossroads” shows reflect current realities in a broad cross-section of gender issues including women’s participation in decision-making, violence against women, women’s employment, women in elections, young women specialists, etc..

 

Peace- building topics will include women and youth participation in peace building, issues of conflict prevention and resolution, issues of women IDPs and many others, discovering the most actual areas of social reality and coinciding with the mission of the UNIFEM regional project.

 

Apart of specific gender and peace-building segment three Internews offices will consider gender and peace-building approaches while producing the whole scope of the overwhelmingly popular Crossroads.

 

Since 2004, the three Internews offices have also produced a weekly “Kids’ Crossroads”. Based on idea of the original Crossroads programme, ‘Kids’  is being produced by adolescents (ages 14-17) who are aspiring journalists.  Under the UNIFEM/Internews partnership, it was agreed that four times over 2006, the Kids Crossroads will cover gender and peace building issues from the kids’ perspective.