TORONTO, Feb. 28, 2018 /CNW/ - Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) is proud to receive a 2017 Lieutenant Governor's Ontario Heritage Award for Excellence in Conservation. The Lieutenant Governor's Ontario Heritage Awards, administered by the Ontario Heritage Trust, are prestigious awards that recognize exceptional contributions to heritage conservation, environmental sustainability and biodiversity, and cultural and natural heritage. The award recognized the success of JHR's Indigenous Reporters Program, which aims to improve the quality and number of Indigenous voices in Canadian media.
The Indigenous Reporters Program aims to increase the number of Indigenous journalists and stories in media. It does this by offering in-community training, sending a journalism trainer to a First Nations community. The program further alleviates some of the financial burden of Indigenous journalism students by offering scholarships, and provides hands-on experience for emerging Indigenous journalists by offering internships at mainstream and Indigenous newsrooms.
The program also aims to educate non-Indigenous journalists and journalism students on best practices for reporting on Indigenous communities.
SHERBROOKE, QC, Feb. 23, 2018 /CNW Telbec/ - A world first, the UNESCO Chair on the Prevention of Radicalization and Violent Extremism (UNESCO-PREV Chair) was inaugurated today at Université de Sherbrooke, in partnership with UQAM and Concordia University, and in collaboration with the Canadian Commission for UNESCO. A number of Quebec and Canadian government stakeholders came together to highlight the importance of the initiative, which directly or indirectly affects millions of people worldwide.
During the inauguration, Jhon Carvajal gave enlightening testimony about the need for the new Chair. Carvajal is one of many people who have been affected by radicalization and violent extremism; he and his family fled their war-torn country of Colombia in 2005. As a teenage refugee, he experienced a challenging first few years in Quebec. Carvajal could have isolated himself and gone down the wrong path... but he chose a different course. Instead, Carvajal got involved with Dialogue +, a youth-driven project that offers a multitude of activities aimed at preventing discrimination in the face of prejudice and radicalization.