Twenty Media house managers and editors drawn from various radio and television stations on Wednesday completed a three-day training in effective elections coverage and the creation of community awareness in Northern Bahr el Ghazal State.
Gismala Raison, the representative of the Mission for Sustainable Advancement (MSA), a national organization that conducted the workshop, told Radio Tamazuj Wednesday that they achieved the objectives of the training and that the participants performed well.
“I am very grateful to have met the target beneficiaries and we are very grateful because they (trainees) were very committed and participated well during the training that we conducted,” he said. “This training of media house managers is important because it is they who do the planning in the process of covering and creating awareness,”
He added, “We are training them so that they have basic knowledge, especially in some of the laws that govern elections, so that they do their work accordingly.”
The Nhom Laau Radio Station manager, Mou Deng Deng, who participated in the training, said they gained a lot of skills on how to make people aware of their rights, participate in elections, and elect the leaders they want.
“We are very glad for the training on how media houses should prepare themselves for the upcoming elections because we know that the media has an effective role to inform citizens,” he said.
Another participant, Jacob Majok who works with Good News Radio, said the workshop has enlightened them on the role of journalists during elections.
“The workshop enlightened us on our journalistic duties and the context of journalism in elections,” he said. “It was a very good engagement and we benefited a lot and we hope that God will make this continuous so as to empower the media because our work is so important.”
The training was funded under the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) civic education program for media houses in Northern Bahr el Ghazal State and implemented by the Mission for Sustainable Advancement (MSA).