History:

The IMMF was founded in 1991 by British photojournalist Tim Page, who survived multiple wounds while covering the Vietnam War but lost a number of close colleagues. The foundation was set up in memory of those killed on all sides while covering the wars in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia 1945-1975.

The IMMF was registered in Great Britain as a charitable trust in 1991 and subsequently as a separate foundation under Thai law in Thailand with the aim of improving standards of professional journalism in the region. The first IMMF Thailand president was Charles Antoine de Nerciat, Bangkok bureau chief of Agence France-Presse.

Initial funds were obtained from members of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand, from the Asia Foundation and through an auction in November 1992 of images donated by leading photographers from around the world. This enabled the IMMF to set up an office in Bangkok in November 1993 and hold its first training course -- basic print journalism -- in May 1994. Another photo auction was organised in 1995.

The inaugural course, held at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, was attended by 15 journalists from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, and proved a major success.

Activities:

The IMMF conducts training courses in Thailand, smaller workshops elsewhere in the region and supports other media initiatives. More than 400 journalists have to date received training at IMMF courses.

Since its inception, the foundation has conducted 13 regional training courses in Thailand, attended by more than 200 working journalists from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. On average 16 journalists attend each course.

The courses, three to four weeks in length, have included print and radio journalism and photojournalism, with English the language of instruction. While bettering journalistic standards is the drive behind all training, each course has a specific focus. Themes have included agriculture, the environment, business and economics, as well as issues related to health, social welfare, women and children.

The IMMF has also held 12 workshops in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, using interpreters to reach those journalists who are precluded through lack of English from attending our regional courses. We have pioneered foreign media support for areas of provincial Laos, where opportunities for such training were all but non-existent. Several workshops in English have also been organized for Thai reporters working for newspapers in Bangkok.

Many of our lead trainers have been provided by The Thomson Foundation, a media support organisation based in the United Kingdom. These outstanding teachers, all practising or former journalists, have worked for media outlets such as the BBC, The Financial Times, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph and Farmers Weekly.

One trainer has come from the Washington D.C.-based International Centre for Foreign Journalists, while the Knight Foundation assigned us two International Press fellows who not only taught but assisted with other projects.

Local experts, familiar with the region and Asian sensitivities, have worked as associate trainers for each regional course. Guest speakers are enlisted from Thailand's top universities, the business and journalistic communities, government and grass roots organisations.

The IMMF also organises exhibitions of photographs taken during courses and places stories written by students in Bangkok newspapers. The foundation helps outstanding alumni win prestigious scholarships and entry into media studies programs in Europe and the United States.

In 1995, the IMMF provided a grant to the Photo Archive group in Cambodia to preserve the archival photographs of the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide. We have commissioned reports on the state of historic films held in Vietnamese and Lao film archives.

Aims and Philosophy:

The IMMF seeks to build a better future for the region by helping to develop journalism in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. While we remember those who died, our focus is on helping the living -- colleagues in societies emerging from decades of war, poverty and isolation.

Based in Thailand, gateway to the region, the IMMF draws on a world-wide network -- both formal and personal -- to run training courses, foster exchanges and fund important media activities that will nourish a new generation of journalists.

By putting present and future opinion leaders from the region through intensive, highly interactive training, we hope to build bridges among the five Southeast Asian nations. Many of our alumni form lasting personal friendships and professional contacts through our courses.

The IMMF is totally apolitical and independent. While it does not promote any particular journalistic style or cultural bias, it does address itself to establishing standards of ethics and practice within the context of Indochina and its neighbours.

The foundation is unique among media-support organisations because it was founded and spearheaded by working journalists with wide-ranging contacts in the region. Many of our members and supporters covered Indochina's conflicts.

The IMMF is a hands-on organisation, with minimal overheads. Board members, trustees and supporters freely donate their time and talents. Paid professionals are employed to help in administration, accounting and training.

Training Formula, Results Achieved:

Our training is based squarely on the needs of journalists in the region -- as expressed by themselves, their editors and others in the media field. Initial guidelines also came from valuable media assessments commissioned for Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam in 1994. Another is being prepared.

Changes and refinements to our basic formula are made on the basis of evaluations by students, instructors and the IMMF project director after each regional training course.

Our regional courses are held in Thailand with students based at either Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, Chiang Mai University in northern Thailand or the Prince of Songkhla University in the south. The atmosphere at these institutions is conducive to learning and the cost of accommodation and classrooms very reasonable.

Thailand, we believe, is an ideal laboratory for our regional training. It is endowed with a vigorous, competent and open media sector and offers resources ranging from United Nations agencies to grassroots non-governmental organisations to academic experts on virtually every subject. For better and worse, it is "ahead'' of its neighbours: its economy is sophisticated; its countryside is beset by environmental problems. Thus visiting journalists can take back to their own countries a greater understanding of how to deal with issues that will be affecting them in the near future.

Although classroom work and speakers are integral to every course, great stress is placed on fieldwork and the actual production of articles, photographs and radio reports. Visits to rice fields, factories and stock market trading floors, interviews with hilltribe people, fishing families and business executives are featured.

Hard work and sometimes spartan conditions are the norm. Students share sleeping space with rural dwellers, conditions which help break down any initial cultural barriers and forge a feeling of family. Bonds and friendships formed are usually so strong that rarely does a course end without some tears being shed.

Graduates gain a clearer understanding of issues affecting the whole region, of the ethics of good journalism and the importance of balanced reporting. Journalistic techniques and skills are sharpened.

Many of our alumni have risen to positions of higher responsibility and been given opportunities to take up scholarships abroad, attributing their success at least in part to their IMMF training. Alumni have been offered further education by The Freedom Forum of the United States, The Thomson Foundation and City of London University in the United Kingdom. Some have started clubs, talk shows and columns in their newspapers on topics such as the environment and dealing with AIDS.

The products of each group of 16 journalists reach an audience estimated at three million people. Radio journalists probably reach twice that number. Potentially, their work has enormous impact.

Organization and Funding:

The IMMF Thailand is steered by an executive board of six members, chaired by two presidents. Among the eight are working journalists but all give their time voluntarily. Our 19 trustees are drawn from the world of business, journalism and academia in Australia, Laos, Thailand, the United States and Western Europe.

A project director, assisted by an administrator, is responsible for running the organisation, implementing the training courses and seeking donor support. Accounting services are provided by a professional, and IMMF accounts are annually audited by Arthur Andersen. The foundation provides full accounting of all grant funds as well as substantive evaluation of what has been accomplished.

The average cost of running the IMMF per year over the past six years, including the cost of providing training both in Thailand and the region, has been approximately $180,000. The cost for the period 2001-2003 is estimated to be about $250,000, given the increased length of regional courses as well as higher airfares and accommodation costs.

Our financial support and other forms of assistance have come from private organizations, government agencies and individuals from Australia, Cambodia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Laos, Myanmar, Sweden, Thailand, United Kingdom, Vietnam and the United States. All supporters have expressed satisfaction with course results and the handling of finances.

The IMMF has been approved for 501C-3 funding for U.S. donors through the Give2Asia programme of the Asia Foundation.

IMMF Thailand is affiliated with IMMF UK.

The Future:

The IMMF intends to continue its training and other activities as long as these are truly needed -- and no longer. We hope to improve, but neither significantly expand our work nor enlarge our organisation. Success has come in large measure from an intimate scale and personal touch.

At least through to 2003, the IMMF plans to hold two regional training courses and several in-country workshops each year generally following the successful formula we have established. We shall add television and special training for senior editors to our standard course roster. Themes will continue to be relevant to the region and include as new issues: the status of ethnic minorities, cultural preservation and environmental problems in agriculture. To improve comprehension and thus the impact of courses, the IMMF hopes to organise a minimum of one month's intensive English tuition for successful applicants in their own countries prior to attending regional courses.

To better understand the region's media needs, refine our programmes and more clearly define the role of the IMMF, new media assessments were carried out in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam during 2001.

The IMMF will soon publish a concise manual in English on basic journalism. This will be translated into Khmer, Lao, Burmese, Thai and Vietnamese, and become required reading for all journalists selected to attend IMMF training programmes. It is hoped the manuals will also become a valuable resource for journalists after completing IMMF courses and be widely shared among their colleagues at home.

The IMMF Thailand website -- www.immf.th.org -- will be developed into a better tool for communicating with our alumni, funders and colleagues in the region and beyond. We plan to make freely available online our training manuals and other course material.