SDJF & HELVETAS Join Hands to Establish Incubator Spaces for Media Students in 03 State Universities

SDJF in partnership with Helvitas will install an interactive and latest learning spaces within media department of 3 state universities under the project titled “Incubator Spaces for Promoting Information rights and freedom of Expression” (InSPIRE) funded by European Union under the EIDHR funding instrument.

The formal agreement for this project was signed on 10th December 2019 between SDJF partner Helvitas and European Union (EU) at Hotel Movenpick in Colombo 03. EU has signed a total of 7 grants with civil society organizations to promote Democracy, freedom of expression and women empowerment under two different funding instruments. The total allocation for these 7 grants is 4 million Euros. This ceremony was organized by EU to mark the International Human Rights Celebration and 16 days activism against gender based violence for year 2019.

Dr. Deepika Udagama, Chairperson of Human Rights Commission delivered her key note speech at the event. She added that “Sri Lanka need a strong social movement rather than small civil society organizations to protect and promote democracy and human rights in the country”. She appreciated the contribution EU has made to strengthen the civil society actors in promoting democracy and human rights.

SDJF and Helvitas will closely work with respective university media departments in designing the incubator spaces and equip them with latest mobile news studio. Further, they will join hands with the universities to introduce supplementary modules on gender sensitive reporting, right to information, new media tools and, students will receive in house mentoring from the expertise in the selected field to produce multimedia products. In the next 3 years, the project will train more than 350 media students and produce 150 multimedia products that promote freedom of expression, information rights and gender equality.

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