Public broadcaster TRT's English-language channel TRT World offers journalism training programs for young Syrian refugees in the country in a bid to encourage them to take up journalism in the future.
Fifty Syrian children staying at Beydağı Container City, a refugee camp made of container-like housing units for Syrians in the eastern city of Malatya, attend the current program. TRT World journalists and editors educate the students on mobile journalism, storytelling and the basics of journalism.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency (AA), the program's coordinator, Gülay Kaplan, said they first launched the project last year in Gaziantep, a southern Turkish city bordering with Syria and held similar programs in Şanlıurfa, Kilis, Hatay and Kahramanmaraş where Syrian refugee camps are located. "They learn how to make and edit videos, and how to write stories. We both want to teach them journalism and make their lives easier with giving them a platform to express themselves," she said. The program ended with a video news competition. TRT World will also hold similar workshops in Adana and Osmaniye in southern Turkey soon. "I learned many things here. Journalism is a nice profession," 17-year-old Nada al-Rashwani, who attended the program, said. Al-Rashwani, who fled to Turkey six years ago with her family, is among the more than 3.5 million refugees Turkey hosts. A small fraction of refugees stays in camps like the one in Beydağı, and others reside elsewhere, struggling to make a living and integrate into Turkish society. With no end in sight to the conflict in Syria, Turkey started taking steps for better integration of the refugees, giving them work permits and citizenship.
