REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA  --  About 14 Indonesian women journalists joined Women In News and Sport (WINS) Program that is organised by Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) News and Department of Foreign Affairs. The workshop took place at Australian Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia started from November 28th to December 2nd, 2016.

WINS Program aims to enhance women journalists participation in news and sport events particularly in Indo-Pacific region. Furthermore, this program also to improve women journalists in multi platform writing, interviewing, storytelling, and social media skills.

"We have 14 Indonesian women journalists here doing five days of activities. This program is the combination of ABC International, i work for ABC Australia and Department of Foreign Affairs. We are running this program in the number of countries such as Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, and many others," said Tracey Holmes, one of the mentors of WINS Program on Friday.

The 14th women journalists who joined this WINS Program are working for Metro TV, Kompas, The Jakarta Post, Republika, Tabloid Bola, Seputar Indonesia, Media Indonesia, Detik, Liputan 6 and many others. Through this program each journalist had a chance to express their opinions about sports in Indonesia and its challenges and difficulties while covering the sport events.

"And it's been really fantastic here in Indonesia. Through this program we hope there will be stronger ties between women and sport, and also my country and your country," said Tracey who already been working as sport journalist for nearly 30 years.

Since sport mostly relates to men athletes and journalists, WINS Program also aims to bring confidence to women journalists that they have the same potential and abilities as men. Tracey said no gender barrier in reporting news and sport on journalism industry.

During five days WINS Program, there were indoor and outdoor activities. In order to gain details information and background about sport, some of news sources such as Indonesian Olympian couple Alan Budikusuma and Susi Susanti, who won gold medals for badminton at the Barcelona Olympics 1992 and woman Indonesian runner Triyaningsih joined the program as the speakers.

Australia's Deputy Ambassador to Indonesia Justin Lee said on behalf of Australian government really support this WINS Program. "We hope all of you who join this program can bring inspiration toward others particularly the next generation. Sport that is used to be dominated by men obviously can also be handled, understood and covered by women journalists," said Lee.

One of the women journalists who joined the WINS Program, Femi Diah who works for Detik, said the program was really useful. She hopes the WINS Program will be still running in the coming years. Other journalist, Risa Kosasih from Liputan 6 said the course was really useful and she gained more knowledge from seniors in the same field.

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