Media Development Center “MDC” at Birzeit University, with collaboration of Heinrch Boll Foundation held the closing day ceremony of “Villages Voices” Project on the 6th of November, 2012. This project was implemented in partnership with twelve local radio stations in West Bank which are following:
Palestinian Public Broadcasting Corporation- Ramallah, Al-Balad Radio station- Jenin., Kol-Alnas Radio Station- Tulkarem, Bethlehem 2000 Radio station- Bethlehem, Tarek Al-Mahabeh Radio Station- Nablus, Radio Amwaj- Ramallah, Radio Al-Qamar- Jericho, Radio Marah-Hebron, Radio Al-Horiya- Hebron, Radio Al-najah voice- Nablus, Birziet University Radio station- Birziet, Radio Mazaj Ramallah
The goal of the project is to increase the theoretical and practical capacities of Palestinian media professionals (PMPs) on producing Radio feature story, by conducting four training courses on Research and script writing for feature story telling, Interviewing Techniques, Sound for Radio and Feature Story Editing
During these training courses, the participants were provided technical inputs down to produce a radio program of 19 episodes about the situation of different Palestinian villages, within the field visits the participants found out that for example, one family in Burin in Nablus has music professional skills and are very talented on what they produce .As well a village called Burqin in Jenin that has one of the oldest church in the world according to the Church in charge
Through the project, the participants has studied the oral history of these villages, and discovered that the history of them will be lost forever, and this is the cause it was interested to get more information about the villages and published them so they won't be forgotten over time. Also, the participants detected the threats and difficulties which these villages are facing because the Israeli occupation policies like the settlements, the apartheid wall and Israeli assaults policies which prevent the Palestinian from building or improving their villages.
At the end of the ceremony, three episodes of the radio program were selected as winners and get a prize for meeting the Professional criterias by the evaluation's team at MDC. The winner episodes and participants are the following :
BOREN STORY- BY HAYA QASEAH- NABLUS
BEIT ESKAKA STORY- BETHLAHIM- AHMAD TANOH
BROQEEN STORY- SKON SHA’BAN- JENIN.