JHR’s Canada World program was one of four projects singled out for a feature in the Banff Forum’s 20 Years Of Impact report from the hundreds of initiatives developed or accelerated as a result of their leaders’ participation in the Banff Forum over the past two decades.
In the report, JHR Executive Director Rachel Pulfer describes how the Canada World project “was born out of the 2016 Banff Forum, where [she] shared a vision of how Canada could lead through media development, working with national media partners on programming that provided training and support for journalists worldwide.
“It’s had significant impacts to date: it contributed to the Kenyan government including provisions for trafficked women, as well as women and girls fleeing domestic violence, as part of their strategy to rebuild after Covid, and beyond; it significantly increased the number of women parliamentarians entering Cabinet and forming government in the Democratic Republic of Congo; and it ensured mental health supports for the Syrian refugee population living in Turkey through Covid-19 and beyond.
“More than a dozen Banffers contributed to shaping and refining this initiative in its earliest days. Without this support, it may never have grown into the most expansive, impactful project Journalists for Human Rights has undertaken.”
Canada World: Voices for Women and Girls is an initiative led by Journalists for Human Rights and delivered in collaboration with leading media partners in Canada, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and across the Middle East. Its goals are to strengthen democracy through strengthened media, to better inform local communities on human rights – especially those of women and girls – and to promote greater transparency and accountability from local and international authorities towards their constituents in developing countries.
Read the full report here.