環(huán)球英語(yǔ) Global Press Institute
May 17, 2015
Voice 1
Welcome to Spotlight. I’m Bruce Gulland.
Voice 2
And I’m Colin Lowther. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
Voice 3
“African stories should be told by Africans. I think that it what is important with GPI. We are community reporters. We know our local communities. We communicate with them every day. My name is Nakinti Nofuru. I am a reporter for GPI.”
Voice 1
Nakinti Nofuru talked about her work with GPI in a video. She is a reporter in Cameroon for the Global Press Institute or GPI. GPI is different than most news organizations. They provide training and jobs for women. These women, like Nofuru, become high quality reporters. They share important news from their communities with the rest of the world. Today’s Spotlight is on the Global Press Institute.
Voice 2
Christi Hegranes is a young woman from the United States. In 2004 she was working as a reporter in Nepal. But she saw that she was not the best person to write stories about Nepal. There were local women who had a lot of knowledge about what was happening in their communities. Hegranes said in a press release:
Voice 4
“I saw that no matter how much I knew about Nepalese culture, I would always be a foreigner. I would always face a space that I could not cross in the social, historical and political situation of reporting. It seemed clear that those most able to report the news were the local people, not a woman from the West.”
Voice 1
Hegranes left her job and began a new organization. She called it the Global Press Institute. Her goal was to train local women in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. It is often difficult for women to find work that pays them well. And in these areas women did not have the opportunity to be trained as reporters. GPI could train and employ them as reporters. They would be able to have a good job.
Voice 2
In 2006, GPI began training women. GPI uses a particular method in their training. The women learn how to write good stories from story coaches. These are people who teach good story writing skills. The women also learn to take photographs to publish with their stories.
Voice 1
An important part of reporting is to make sure that the facts are correct. GPI trains reporters to research everything carefully. The women learn how to find good information sources for their stories. For example, a source can a person the reporters talk to, to find out what is truly happening. Sources can also be documents and other materials. By finding good sources, the reporters produce news that is very local but also of very high quality.
Voice 2
For example, Ivonne Jeannot Laens is a GPI reporter in Argentina. She wrote a popular story about a group in Argentina called “Make It Sound.” This group teaches people to make musical instruments from garbage that people have thrown away. This story shared interesting community news that people often do not read. Often, international reporters cannot understand what is happening on a community level. News organizations are also using fewer international reporters. This means that people around the world are not hearing many important stories. Christi Hegranes explained to Forbes magazine:
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“I founded GPI to create a new way forward for the decreasing field of international reporting. Most newspapers have closed their foreign offices. The few that remain cost a lot of money to operate. They are limited in their ability to write about anything other than war, disaster, poverty, and disease. The idea of GPI is simple: to train local people. They understand the social, historical and political situation of a place. They can provide low-cost, high-impact news coverage for local and global readers.”
Voice 1
Today, GPI has trained more than 130 women as reporters. The women are in 25 different countries around the world. The Global Press Journal publishes the women’s stories. GPI also has more than 50 major international publishing partners. These news organizations share stories from GPI reporters. And they are having a very big effect.
Voice 2
GPI reporting provides a wider way to see the world. People learn more about what is happening in other places. This awareness can even make people want to make changes in their communities. It also helps to keep open and honest communication between people in different countries. Paige Stoyer is the photo editor for GPI. In a GPI video she says:
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“GPI is a change-maker on many levels. It makes change globally because it is changing how international reporting works. It is also a change-maker in the individual lives of the women that it trains and employs to be reporters.”
Voice 1
GPI also provides fair pay for women who may not be able to make enough money doing other work. The women then use this money to help themselves and their families. They gain more power in the community. Manori Wijesekera is a GPI reporter in Sri Lanka. In a GPI video she explains how reporting for GPI changed her life:
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“I think GPI sees the world very differently and I value that. GPI has given me an identity but much more than that. I think GPI has given me a sense that there is something out there that I can actually do, something that I can work toward”
Voice 2
GPI is changing lives around the world. If you would like to read stories from GPI reporters, you can visit our website. You will find the link to the Global Press Journal there. We end our program with reporter Nakinti Nofuru from Cameroon. She tells GPI how it has made her life better:
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“GPI has turned my whole life around, completely! It is like a total new life. I feel so special. I feel so grateful. I feel like a specialist thanks to my editors. Whenever I write a story I am hoping to see comments, I am hoping to get responses from people. And when I see them I feel so happy!”
Voice 1
The writer of this program was Rena Dam. The producer was Luke Haley. The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight. You can find our programs on the internet at www.radioenglish.net. This program is called, ‘Global Press Institute’.
Voice 2
We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye.
