Local journalist and President of the Guyana Press Association (GPA), Nazima Raghubir, was on Saturday elected as President of the Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM).
Raghubir will serve as President of the regional body from 2021 to 2023. She previously served as the First Vice-President of the regional association. Also elected to the Executive Committee was Emmanuel Joseph, who is the first Vice-President (Finance); Wesley Gibbings, the Second Vice-President, and Harvey Panka, the General Secretary.
Veteran Guyanese journalist and GPA Executive Member, Denic Chabrol, was also elected as the ACM’s Assistant General Secretary while Myriam Malmin and Kenton Chase were elected Floor Members.
During her tenure as President, Raghubir said that she hopes to continue advocating on behalf of journalists across the region. In fact, she highlighted that the various media associations and focal points across the region have presented some of the issues they have been facing.
“Based on what is raised in the country report and the type of feedback that we had, that informed our agenda for the next couple of years,” Raghubir told the News Room in an invited comment on Saturday.
Issues that are expected to be addressed include the challenges to the access of information, cybercrime laws across the Caribbean, and the effect of disasters- such as the pandemic or the volcanic eruption in St. Vincent and the Grenadines- on the work of media professionals.
The ACM was established in Barbados in 2001 and will be observing its 20th anniversary in November of this year. Addressing the local press association, Raghubir relayed that the GPA’s constitution does not permit elections to be conducted via a virtual platform.
As such, the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in a delay of those elections, which were slated to be held in January 2020.
She said that the GPA has discussed engaging the National COVID-19 Task Force (NCTF) on granting permission for the hosting of those elections. She, however, may not contest an executive position.
