MAP is the Media Association for Peace, the first non-governmental organization in Lebanon, the Middle East and North Africa region dedicated to work on the role of Media in Peace, Conflict and Social Change through the concept of Peace Journalism.
It is a non-partisan, non-governmental, youth-led organization, founded in 2013 by the Lebanese Young Peace Journalists group, created by the journalist and peace activist Ms Vanessa Bassil. MAP is registered in 2013 under the number 812 at the Lebanese Ministry of Interior.
The name of the organization is inspired by the metaphor of Peace Journalism: “Peace Journalism approach provides a new road map tracing the connections between journalists, their sources, the stories they cover and the consequences of their reporting – the ethics of journalistic intervention” (Lynch & McGoldrick 2005).
The vision of MAP is to get to a media that play an essential role in peacebuilding especially in conflict and post-conflict areas while enhancing Human Rights, Dialogue, Reconciliation, Gender Equality, Sustainable Development and Social Justice in order to reach a less violent, more peaceful world.
For that, MAP’s mission is spreading, advocating, training, developing, practicing, and researching the concept of Peace Journalism through workshops, seminars, conferences, public debates, projects and publications, while creating strong support networks, in Lebanon, the MENA region and worldwide.