OSCE trains public council members to promote police reform in Tajikistan through social media

The OSCE Programme Office in Dushanbe conducted a series of training courses from 28 June to 19 July 2019 on using social media to promote the work of Public Councils on Police Reform in Tajikistan. The courses were organized in Dushanbe, Gharm, Kulob and Khujand and brought together 100 participants, including members of the Republican, Regional and District Public Councils on Police Reform, as well as representatives of the country’s Interior Ministry.

Participants learned and practiced how to write comprehensive news articles and stories, create Facebook pages for the Public Councils, draft engaging posts, and analyse the performance of posts and how to effectively promote them. They also drafted practical social media strategies and posting plans to be used for promotion of Facebook pages.

Engaging communities online is regarded as an important step towards engaging the public more in police reform with the aim of bringing the police closer to citizens.  

“The main purpose of the course was to train the participants on how to properly promote their work using traditional and modern journalistic techniques,” said Izzatmand Salomov, one of the trainers of the course. “Since many people today use social media, we trained the participants on how to write short articles, posts and content tailored for social media. We also showed participants relevant tools and techniques of using mobile phones and applications for promoting their work.”

Askar Tursunov, member of the Public Council on Police Reform of Sughd region, said: “We used to inform the population about the police reform process only through meetings and traditional media channels. In this training, we learned skills of using social media and website management, which can help us to reach out to the online community and inform them about the work of the Public Councils on Police Reform.”