By Lindsey Wray
Sevgul Uludag’s husband says she is like a phoenix – she burns herself up at night but is somehow able to recreate herself in the morning.
Uludag, a journalist in Cyprus, focuses this continual energy for reporting on trying to ease tension in her divided country so that future generations do not carry on the burden of the conflict.
“I refuse this division of my country,” she said. “It is too small to be divided.”
Uludag, the recipient of a 2008 Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women’s Media Foundation, spoke about reporting in Cyprus during a panel discussion Oct. 9 at the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C. Another Courage awardee, Farida Nekzad of Afghanistan, and the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Edith Lederer, also shared their reporting experiences at the event.
The panel discussion was moderated by Kimberly Dozier, a CBS correspondent who is no stranger to reporting in dangerous circumstances. She was critically injured in Iraq in May 2006 in a car bomb attack that killed an American soldier, an Iraqi translator, and two fellow CBS crew members.
Uludag said that having separation in an increasingly global world is not the way to solve problems.
“You need to find ways of communication."
But sometimes communicating about what’s happening can be difficult. After Nekzad’s news agency, Pajhwok Afghan News, published a story about a warlord in 2003, Nekzad was nearly kidnapped. When she took a taxi from one of her jobs to the other, the driver stared at her in the mirror and started questioning her about the story, asking her why she published it and threatening her to not write other stories. He sped away in the wrong direction, so Nekzad was forced to jump from the moving vehicle, wounding her arms and knees.
Despite having undergone adversity to report the news, Nekzad and the other Courage winners have found bright spots amidst tragedy.
Lederer, for example, recalled writing about a young girl while covering the famine in Somalia in 1992. She later brought clothes for the girl and helped secure a spot in an orphanage for her to live.
One of Uludag’s most gratifying moments came as a result of her helping families uncover mass graves and find their lost loved ones.
For Nekzad, inspiration to continue reporting comes from serving as a role model for other women and supporting them so that their voices are not silenced.
Still, she said, “this is not an easy task.”
Lindsey Wray is the IWMF’s communications coordinator.