Kathmandu – Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists (NEFEJ) has organized one day discussion on how to make Hahakahaki online sustainable in terms of both contents and financing.

The program organized on October 1, 2019 was attended by the representatives from CRT/N, IAPHF, ReCON, NACEUN, and NEFEJ. Speaking at the program, experts have suggested focusing on investigative and policy related news and other materials for the online.

Mr. Purushottam Shrestha from CRT/N suggested that HakaHaki should carry out investigative news stories and follow up the news. Further, he shared that CRT/N would love to collaborate with HakaHaki for content production. Mr. Umesh Shrestha from EVAN suggested that HakaHaki can make reports about new technologies like electric vehicles and incorporate findings from different studies regarding the new technology and disseminate information through news stories.

 Mr. Purna N. Ranjitkar from ReCON also suggested the same and pointed out that media can play an important role to pressure the government to set standards and parameters while introducing different models of vehicles inside Nepal.

As for the sustainability of the program, Mr. Dinesh Raj Bhuju from NAST pointed out that HakaHaki Online should connect with Universities as they can get a lot of ideas on content production and can also ask university students to carry out researches. Furthermore, he shared that Resource Himalaya Foundation organizes a graduate conference every year on the first week of April and HakaHaki could become the media partner for the graduate conference.

 Mr. Narayan Gyawali from NACEUN pointed out that organizations can allocate a certain amount of money on Communications and Advocacy from the budget of the organization itself. He suggested that HakaHaki online should gain people’s trust after which various organizations will themselves come looking for collaborations.

 Mr. Madhab Sharma from IAPHF pointed out that different Embassies allocate budget of about three to five hundred thousand every year on communication and advocacy alone and hence HakaHaki Online could also partner with them.

 Mr. Dinesh Raj Bhuju suggested that HakaHaki should make an inventory of organizations who could become possible partners and it could allocate one article for one organization and give the responsibility to around twenty organizations working in environment sector. Further, he added that different government institutions should collaborate with HakaHaki to disseminate information about their activities rather than making a newspaper of their own.

The program ended with closing remarks from Mr. Nimesh Regmi, General Secretary, NEFEJ, who thanked the representatives from different organizations for giving their valuable suggestions for the sustainability of HakaHaki Online.