Coalition of Relief and Building launches the Humanitarian Media Center announcement in Marib city

Yesterday, Tuesday, Coalition of Relief and Building (CRB) launched the Humanitarian Media Center announcement (HMC) in a speech ceremony attended by a number of local leaders, media professionals, and interested parties in Marib. The center aims to highlight humanitarian and human rights issues, enhance community awareness, and support relief and development efforts via impartial professional media.

At the launch and announcement ceremony, CRB head, Dr. Kamal Al-Qudami, delivered a speech in which he explained that the establishment of the center came to address the worsening crisis in Yemen and the increasing need for responsible and purposeful humanitarian media, in order to report the realistic picture of the humanitarian situation in the country.

Al-Qudami pointed out that the media plays a major role in stimulating humanitarian response and increasing awareness of urgent issues. He emphasized on the importance of the humanitarian media role  in reporting the suffering of those affected by humanitarian crises and mobilizing the necessary support to ease their suffering.  At the ceremony, two other speeches were delivered by Marib governorate undersecretary, Dr. Abdul Rabbo Miftah, and  Ministry of Information undersecretary, Ahmed Rabie. Generally,  both speeches emphasized  on the importance of creating specialized humanitarian media that focuses on humanitarian issues in a professional and reliable  way, without being influenced  the issues covered by the media, and in response to the urgent need that people lack to convey their suffering in all the circumstances and conditions they are experiencing today in Marib governorate. Accordingly, Marib shelters more than 3 million IDPs, or 62 percent of the IDPs in the country, due to the ongoing war that led to t Yemenis’ suffering and displacement from their homes to live in areas of displacement in exceptional and harsh conditions. All that doubled their suffering and that requires a responsible humanitarian media to shed light on humanitarian issues from all sides, and reports the truth without equivocation, and conveys the voice of human suffering to every organization and international forum.

In the organizations’ speech, Arwa  Al-Ramal explained that today’s reality has reached its peak due to war-related misery and suffering that requires the presence of media directed at people. This does not mean that humanitarian journalism must be in times of war, but rather in all times of peace and war, as its main element is  human being. She pointed out that media must have a foothold in creating an environment of peace and hope, and dedicated efforts to alleviate human suffering and fulfill human aspirations.

The announcement statement indicated that the center aims to contribute to reporting a clear picture of the humanitarian situation in Yemen, training professional staffs in humanitarian media, contributing to enhancing human dignity and protecting it, and being a reliable source of humanitarian information in Yemen. It also seek to achieve effective partnerships with relevant parties and focus  on humanitarian, human rights, societal and climate change issues.

The statement indicated that the center seeks to be a voice for humanity in Yemen, by producing reliable and responsible media content that reflects the reality of the most vulnerable social groups in the country, conveys purposeful humanitarian messages, and contributes to building bridges of cooperation between media professionals, humanitarian organizations, and actors.

The statement called on all media professionals and journalists interested in the humanitarian field to join the center’s efforts to report the true picture of the humanitarian tragedy in Yemen, which contributes to stimulating international solidarity, and paying attention to the suffering of people and their conditions, urging media institutions to adopt humanitarian issues and spread awareness messages that contribute to providing support and assistance for Yemenis.

It also called on all humanitarian and community organizations to cooperate with the center to achieve the goals of humanitarian work in Yemen, and to strive to empower, support, and train journalists and media professionals to raise their competencies in dealing with humanitarian issues, and to face professional challenges in this field, to be a qualitative addition that reports the true picture of the humanitarian situation in the country.

 It is worth mentioning that it is Coalition of Relief and Building decision to transform the CRB Center for Humanitarian Media into the Humanitarian Media Center (HMC), as an independent media institution, after years of media work and issuing humanitarian reports.