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UNESCO is supporting a two-day Pan-Caribbean Symposium on Freedom of Expression organized by the Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM) on 25 and 26 October 2013. ACM is organizing the Symposium in collaboration with the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), the International Press Institute (IPI), the Trinidad and Tobago Publishers and Broadcasters Association (TTPBA), the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MATT) and the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) for the Caribbean in Trinidad and Tobago.

The main focus of the Symposium will be the media and coverage of freedom of expression issues in the region with an additional focus on mobilizing international support for free expression and journalism in the face of crises and emergencies. It will also strengthen the organizational capacities of press associations in the Caribbean to detect and report on freedom of expression violations in the region.

Resource persons include Joseph Treaster of the University of Miami (USA), Barbara Trionfi, Press Freedom Manager at the Vienna-based IPI, and Wesley Gibbings, President of ACM.

Treaster is the John S. and James L. Knight Chair in Cross-Cultural Communication at the University of Miami School of Communication. He works to enhance cross-cultural communication around the world and teaches graduate and undergraduate classes. Trionfi is Convenor of IFEX and also oversees IPI press freedom activities and leads the IPI press freedom team. Her field of expertise covers different areas related to press freedom and freedom of expression, including media ethics and self-regulatory media accountability systems, journalists safety, and international mechanisms to protect press freedom. Gibbings is a Trinidad-based journalist and also deputy Convener of IFEX. He has been a part of press freedom missions throughout the Caribbean and has presented numerous conference papers on press freedom in the region.

Journalists from 11 Caribbean countries (Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saints Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago) will be participating in the Symposium and the proceedings will be streamed ‘live’ on the ACM website to the wider Caribbean journalistic community.