Alicia Phillips Mandaville, Vice President for Global Programs of IREX Visited SDJF

Ms. Alicia Phillips the vice president for global programs for IREX, visited Sri Lanka
Development Journalist Forum (SDJF) on 10 th February 2020 as a part of her mission to IREX
programs in Sri Lanka. She was accompanied by the Stepahnie Hess, Program Officer from
IREX head office in Washington, Jean Mackenzi, Chief of Party, M.C. Rasmin, Deputy Chief of
Party, S.G. Surangi, Senior MEL Advisor and, Kanishka Ratnayake, Program Officer from IREX
Sri Lanka.

The team of delegates formally welcomed by the Chairperson and briefed about the SDJF and its
programs in Sri Lanka. The Program Director Mohamed Azad presented SDJF role in the
implementation of IREX’s Media Empowerment for a Democratic Sri Lanka (MEND) program.
The progress of the MEND projects i.e. MediaCorps Fellowship Program, Media Gender Charter
and, Vibrant Voices Program were presented by the respective program staff. This was followed
by an interaction with a group of MediaCorps fellows and Vibrant Voices beneficiaries from four
women’s organizations. The fellows and beneficiaries explained the impact of each of the
programs and how the program reshaped their lives. As a mark of appreciation SDJF staff
presented a plaque to the Vice President Alicia Phillips.

In the afternoon, Alicia Phillips together with the IREX and senior SDJF staff visited Negombo
Goldi Sands hotel to have a first-hand experience of a MediaCorps Fellowship workshop. The
IREX team observed the 4 th day training workshop activities of the MediaCorps fellows and
interacted with the fellows in the story production and editing sessions. Finally, they also
observed the technical review of the short stories produced by the trainees conducted by an
expert panel who critically assessed the Mojo stories produced by the MC fellows. The Vice
President of IREX appreciated the MediaCorps workshop outputs and the efforts by the fellows
and organizers.

Also she added:
“You are learning something brand new that you want to use for the right reasons. So
Congratulations for being brave to learn a new thing and learn a new way and to try it
today for the first time. Because that is the hardest thing….”
SDJF is the lead partner of IREX in implementing the MEND program in Sri Lanka The goal of
the MEND is to improves citizen’s access to balanced, reliable, and objective news and
information. It rhymes perfectly with the SDJF mission, advocate for democratic and pluralistic
values, strengthen community media and amplify the voice of the excluded, based on
development communication principles.