A national NGO, Talent Initiative for Development (TIDE), over the weekend, trained at least 22 students drawn from nine schools in basic journalism skills in Yei River County in Central Equatoria State.
This training is one of the activities in the “Strengthening gender and peace” project in the county aimed at equipping young journalists with basic knowledge in journalism regarding gender equality and freedom of expression.
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj on Saturday, Robert Antipas, the TIDE program officer, said the purpose of the training is to empower concerned citizens who can voice community issues in a professional manner to attract the attention of the decision-makers.
“Having formed the gender equality clubs, we feel there is a need to strengthen their capacity and we realized there is a need for them to work with other stakeholders and that is why we are working with the journalism clubs in schools, Parent Teacher Association (PTA) members, School Management Committees (SMCs), the police and many others,” he explained. “That is why we have come up with this project and today we started with citizen journalism training. This training is intended to give the basics of journalism at the school level to increase information on gender-related issues.”
“Parents should allow their children to discover themselves and choose their own career paths because we have realized that students are forced to study certain subjects,” Antipas added.
Some of the students who participated in the training commended TIDE and said they are now able to gather news and called for continuous capacity building of young talent in journalism.
Meanwhile, Isaac Peter Zakayo, the inspector of local government in Yei River County, while speaking during the start of the training on Friday, urged the financiers of the project to extend its lifespan.
“I want to thank the team leader of TIDE for letting us know about their activities in the county. The people of Yei already know about issues of gender but there is a problem of gender inequality,” he said. “The issue of decision-making for women and girls is still a problem because most of the decisions are taken by men.”
“So, we want TIDE to implement its activities and also urge them to ask their donors to extend the timeframe of the project because it is too short,” Zakayo added.
The project is meant to run for three months and the youth involved are supposed to acquire skills to transform the community through journalism and Music Dance and Drama (MDD) to address the issues of gender and peace in the community.