PROJECT BRIEF
Our Media Workshops on Urban Health aim to strengthen the media’s response to urban health issues in Nepal. This project was envisaged in order to take a first step towards meeting the goal of a working relationship between the media and the health sector. The major activities conducted during the project implementation period include:
Media monitoring: Media monitoring of September and October editions of 10 newspapers (8 dailies and 2 weeklies – 4 in English and 6 in Nepali). We analysed the media coverage using an Analysis Framework.  The findings from the analysis were then presented during the workshops.
Development of media guide: The team were involved in the design and development of the media guide. The guide was used as a manual to train the journalists and as reference during their fieldwork and write-up.
Media workshops: 3 workshops were held in 3 development regions (Central, Eastern and Western) in Kathmandu, Biratnagar and Pokhara respectively. Each workshop was scheduled for 3 days including a 1-day field visit. 52 journalists participated in the workshops. The Project Lead and Project Coordinator facilitated the workshops. There were also some guest sessions by high-profile government officials namely Dr. Praveen Mishra, MoHP secretary in Kathmandu; Dr. Padam Bahadur Chand, Chief of Policy Planning and International Cooperation Division (PPICD); Mr. Kabiraj Khanal, Under-Secretary of MoHP in Pokhara; and Dr. Bal Krishna Subedi, former Director of Primary Health Care Revitalisation Division (PHCRD) in Biratnagar. Field visits were also conducted in the slum areas to sensitise the journalists about health problems faced by urban poor. We ran these workshops in December, 2013 and January, 2014.
Media monitoring of impact: To measure the impact of the workshops, we extended the media monitoring after the workshops from January 2014 to September 2014.
Special coverage: 17 out of 52 trained journalists were selected for special coverage on key public health issues. The special coverage was in the form of research based articles. Direct supervision and technical support was provided by HERD team to draft and finalise the articles.
Project objectives:
1. To raise the issues pertinent to urbanisation
2. To increase the capacity of journalists to understand and report health issues
3. To improve the quantity and quality of media coverage of urban health issues