Slovak experts helped to help the war-damaged local Afghan television in the Kunduz region back on its feet. At that time, two journalism students at the Faculty of Arts of Comenius University in Bratislava, Mohammad Azim Farhadi and Jana Murínová, together with staff from Slovak local television in Handlová, prepared a project to restore the Kunduz local television. The goal of the project was to modernize the production and broadcasting process in the Afghan television station, as well as to train cameramen, editors, presenters, and journalists in modern technologies and journalistic procedures. The project also resulted in connecting the station to the internet, which gave the editors a "connection to the world" and an important source of information. An important outcome of the project was the introduction of a new editing suite and editing technology. The programming lineup broadcast by the local television also changed. A health magazine was added, which functioned as an audiovisual home doctor and especially helped women with what to do in cases of children’s illnesses. In Afghanistan, television is a major information medium, because a significant part of the population is illiterate. For them, television broadcasting is often the only source of information. In the Kunduz region in northern Afghanistan, the issue of irregular electricity supply is not as severe as in other parts of the country, because it has its own hydroelectric power station. For this reason, viewership of local television there is fairly high. As part of the project, several trainings were carried out in Afghanistan, Bratislava, and Handlová.
The project was implemented in several phases between 2006 and 2008 and was supported by funds from UNDP and the U.S. Embassy in Bratislava.
Text: Mgr. Jana Murínová Photo credits: Jana Murínová, Mohammad Azim Farhadi, Miroslav Majer