On Friday, September 22, at 9 a.m. Central European Time, the academic activities from the “RSF-UMH Elche Safe Space for Freedom of the Press” program are beginning in the Ramón Lobo Room of the Atzavares Building on the Elche Campus. The journalists appearing include Andrea Aldana (Colombia), Loraine Morales (Cuba), and the president of the Spanish chapter of Reporters without Borders (RSF), Alfonso Bauluz. This program to welcome Latin American journalists at risk is the brainchild of the RSF, the UMH, through its Vice Rectorate for internationalization and Cooperation, the Elche City Hall, and the two young Latin American journalists who have been named honorary collaborating journalists by the UMH Department of Social and Human Sciences.

The academic activities are part of the Ryszard Kapuscinski International Seminar on Journalism, Human Rights, Migration and Borders integrated into the teaching on political journalism and professional journalism ethics given by professors José Luis González-Esteban and Carmen María López-Rico. This event is intended for students in the last years of their journalism and audiovisual communication programs; however, anybody interested is welcome from these and other programs, as well as professional journalists.

Beginning on Friday, September 22, and continuing until December 15, various workshops will be held on political & media ecosystems in Cuba and Colombia, and on exercising the profession in these countries in addition to Mexico. They will address issues on covering topics related to migration, narcopolitics, climate change, journalist approaches on gender, ethnicity, and race, in addition to offering a specific workshop on slow journalism, focusing on the genres of chronicle and reporting.

During their stays in Elche, which will last throughout the fall semester, both guest journalists will also meet with university faculty and journalists from distinct professional groups, aiming to provide first hand information on the vicissitudes that are intrinsic to practicing journalism in areas of Latin America where the freedom of the press and expression are a chimera.

Biographies on both journalists is available in the Spanish version of this notification.