Hala Al-Ansari, Secretary General of the Supreme Council for Women on Tuesday unveiled a major contest titled Media Rally aimed at encouraging competition throughout different fields of media among talented Bahraini youth.
This was announced during a press conference held in cooperation with the Bahrain Journalists Association to announce the details of the Media Rally contest. The press conference was attended by a number of journalists and media professionals as well as those interested in women’s issues. The Media Rally is one of the events conducted in line with the celebration of the Bahraini Women’s Day in 2013 Women and Media.
The Secretary-General of the Supreme Council for Women announced that the Media Rally competition will be open to young women and men in order to allow them to express women’s issues in an innovative manner, within the framework of foresight into the future.
Al-Ansari said that there would be financial rewards awarded to the winners in the contest.
“There will also be a slot allocated to the winners to honor them during the celebration of Bahraini Women’s Day during the first week of December, which will be attended by and held under the patronage of Her Royal Highness Princess Sabeeka bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa, wife of His Majesty the King, President of the Supreme Council for Women.”
Al-Ansari aid that the Council has begun to revitalize the field of developing media talent that includes a recent workshop organized in collaboration with the German Embassy to discuss a very important topic namely “Women’s Portrayal in Arab Media”.
“The council is also currently preparing for another training course regarding the relationship between media performance and the knowledge of legislations and human rights, and more importantly, media legislation and how to deal with it.”
“The Council has begun documenting the pioneers in the field of media as the Council will be honoring the leading figures in the field of media throughout the celebration of Bahraini Women’s Day. A permanent photo gallery will also be set up to portray the history of Bahraini women with in the area of media, and will be offered by the Supreme Council for Women as a gift from the Information Affairs Authority.”
“This initiative will create many success stories for youth who are to embark on the same route; it is also a good opportunity to thank these pioneers and celebrate their success.”
In the field of documentation and research, Al-Ansari said that the Supreme Council for Women was currently working on documentation and research in preparation for a comprehensive study assessing the status of Bahraini women in the media.
“This will also highlight the aspects of support for sustainability; aiming for the General Secretariat to develop both quantitative and qualitative data enabling the Council to be reference providing precise information with regards to Bahraini women.”
“The Council is always keen for Women’s day not to only be a celebration of achievements, but also to contribute to developing, monitoring and evaluating the current status and proposing the necessary in accordance with the presence of Bahraini women in the workplace.”
Ezzaldin Al-Moayed, Director General of Administrative and Information Policy at the Supreme Council for Women, said that the Media Rally contest aims to achieve the objectives of the National Plan for the Strategy of the Advancement of Bahraini Women, and the development of competitive spirit among workers and those interested in media related to women’s issues, and encourage creative media cadres to embrace women’s issues.
Al-Moayed said that the Rally aims to strengthen the partnership in the field of media between individuals and institutions to support initial initiatives geared towards women, and to provide a database of talented and distinctive competencies and information targeted to women. This will also promote a positive image of women in the media. Al-Moayyed pointed out that everyone interested in media related to women, of both genders and from different age groups can participate in this “Media Rally”.
Within each of these categories, there are various fields for participation. For example, in the category of written media, participants may submit newspaper articles, interviews, investigative reports or caricatures. While in the field of visual media, participants may submit animations, short television messages (TV spot) or television interviews. In the area of audio media, participation can be with talk show programs, direct speech programs or radio messages. In the field of social media, this can be through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Instagram.
The media content should be associated with the visions and strategies of the National Plan for the Advancement of Bahraini Women, and to contain the technical elements with a vision and a clear message to be achieved within the community, and to take on new innovative ideas or to develop an existing idea. The content should have a distinctive ability to interact with the receiver and access the target audience while having an impact.
Abide to the law of press, publication and intellectual property rights while respecting the principles and conventions of ethics in media work and should not include offensive information to any class or social group or topics of hatred and violence, or the use of obscene images or words.
The work submitted should be in Arabic and should not have previously won other competitions. Each participant may not submit more than one piece of work in each category of the competition.
Complete Rally participation form by visiting Supreme Council for Women’s website SCW.BH, and send the work proposal attached to the following address: Bahraini Women’s Day 2013 Media Rally Department of Public Relations and Media, the Supreme Council for Women PO Box: 38886 Kingdom of Bahrain No later than July 31st 2013.