The Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM) and the Women's Media Centre of Cambodia (WMC), together with the German media development organization DW Akademie, have marked the successful conclusion of “Youth Voices Matter! Supporting independent youth media in Cambodia”, DW Akademie said.
This project was funded by the European Union (EU) and the Khmer Youth Association (KYA) and Youth Council of Cambodia (YCC) also supported the project activities as third-party recipients.
“Youth Voices Matter!” was implemented between 2020 and 2022 in Battambang, Kampong Thom and Siem Reap provinces, as well as in Phnom Penh.
This project aimed to help strengthen the role of civil society in pursuing common agendas for human rights and democratic processes as well as to enhance political participation and representation.
It was aligned with the framework for EU youth policy cooperation, which seeks to engage, connect and empower youth, said Tihamér CZIKA, Deputy Head of the EU Delegation to Cambodia, at the closing event held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Phnom Penh on December 9.
“‘Youth Voices Matter!’ had a dedicated focus on gender equality, it has helped young Cambodian men and women to better understand the media and use it to add their voices to the national discourse,” he said.
For the project implementers, fostering this understanding of the media meant first of all raising awareness on the value and relevance of reliable, truthful information – and how to access it,
DW Akademie said in a press release on December 9.
It is one of the principles of media and information literacy (MIL) and the basis for any informed decision, it said. “Youth Voices Matter!” set out with a country-wide online education campaign, highlighting key media issues such as verification basics and digital security.
In a second step, project-trained facilitators and media professionals organized large-group public exchange forums in the provinces, the press release noted. This allowed participating youth to further explore how to find and access reliable information - and use this knowledge to enter a dialogue with local opinion leaders, voicing their individual views and ideas.
“Exchanges with working journalists allowed for youth to network and establish links with the professional media sector,” it added.