A year ago, three journalists in an ICFJ Anywhere course produced an inspiring story about a Syrian family in Pakistan whose life’s work has been to find jobs – and good incomes – for thousands of their new countrymen.
Now that story has launched an inspiring news service – “Silent Heroes, Invisible Bridges” – whose goal is nothing less than ending prejudice. Its aim is to produce many more inspiring stories – about “silent heroes” like the Syrian family who are “building bridges” across cultures – and send them to media around the world which can use them for free.
It all began as a project for one of the International Center for Journalists’ many online courses, Reporting Across Cultures: Freedom of Expression in the Digital Age. Working as a team, Naveed Ahmad, from Pakistan, Alia Turki Al-Rabeo, from Syria, and Ruzanna Tantushyan, from Armenia, produced a multimedia story about the Al-Barmawys family, who moved to Pakistan more than 30 years ago to begin an employment company that has now placed more than 10,000 Pakistanis in jobs outside the country. The story points out that foreign placements like these bring about US$ 7 billion a year to the country. And it describes the gratitude of the Al-Barmawys’ clients, who have brought them dates, sweets, and even a cellular phone.
The story won its producers invitations to an international conference also on cross-cultural reporting, organized by ICFJ in Alexandria, Egypt, February, 2010. Two media outlets carried the story, including Voice of America and Geo News. It also went on to win the UN X-Cultural (Cross-Cultural) Reporting Contest – which like the course and the conference was funded by the UN Alliance of Civilizations.
Tantushyan is now a communications consultant in Chicago, Ill. Ahmad and Al-Rabeo established Silent Heroes, Invisible Bridges as a nonprofit organization. Based in Istanbul, part of the Turkish chapter of the Anna Lindh Foundation, it has so far produced six stories and the same number of commentaries on its website.
It is growing quickly. Its two founders hope to publish new stories every two weeks, starting April 1. They see their potential customers as any press, TV or radio station – but particularly those that don’t cover much international news themselves. The stories are available free of charge through its Web portal, YouTube, Facebook page, and blog in English and Arabic at the moment. Next will come Turkish and Urdu, and there are plans eventually to add French, German and Spanish. A multilingual Internet radio channel is under development. Also, a far-flung team of 70 stringers, editors and translators – from Chili to Norway to Australia – manage their work through various cyberspace connections.
As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, Ahmad and Al-Rabeo want to dig deep for stories that the major media never get to in, especially in troubled areas of the world such Iraq and Afghanistan. They will deliver accounts of real-life heroes who manage day in and day out to make some contribution against the divisive problems of poverty, terrorism, extremism, corruption and human rights abuses.
The Swiss embassy in Islamabad contributed start-up funds to Silent Heroes, Building Bridges, and ICFJ is a partner in the project. Ahmad and Al-Rabeo hope the news service will become self-supporting. They have sold some ads on the website and are hearing from other interested advertisers. Yet another goal is to train journalists across developing nations in digital media.
“Intolerance seems to be growing in the world,” Al-Rabeo said. “Stereotyping is rampant, but the on-the-ground reality is that people have co-existed for centuries, regardless of their beliefs, skin color and traditions. We look for the human stories of this co-existence. Silent Heroes, Building Bridges aims to be the best source for exclusive, real and inspiring stories of cross-cultural and cross-religious integration and assimilation.”
Share this page