UNESCO Office in Windhoek 38-44 Stein Street, Klein Windhoek, P.O. Box 24519, Windhoek, Namibia
Humanitarian Reporting and Development Journalism Workshop, Windhoek , Namibia
UNESCO Windhoek Office created a platform for training about 18 correspondents from various community radios based in different regions of Namibia. The two day-long training workshop had first allowed the participants to reflect on the MDGs, National Development Plan and the Post -2015 Development Agenda (19-20 November 2014).
This basic understanding of the MDGs then formed the foundation for training participants on gaining further understanding as to the existence of community radios they represented at this workshop. Having reflected on why community radios exist and how they differ from any other types of radios, participants moved on to explore ways to best report on development/humanitarian issues. A rudimentary as it had sounded at the start, the training allowed participants to test their knowledge as what News as in Journalism is. As the result, News had to be defined, and the broader guidelines and specific elements used to determine the newsworthiness of news stories were discussed. As short as time allocated to the training workshop was, it was deemed necessary to allow participants to acquire a specific skill right there: Basic News Writing for Radio!
In order to strengthen the capacity of community radios so as to report effectively and efficiently on the implementation of the MDGs, participants needed to have mastered the skill of how to know what to focus on and how to communicate such vital information to their various audiences.
It was clear that participants increased their knowledge of how to look for news stories and how to judge what is news worthy and not. They learned that it’s imperative that a story must have credible sources, and that in development journalism the most important news makers are the members of that community. News must be told from their point of views. This quote from one participant reflects some of the immediate thoughts: ...as a result of this training “think (differently) thoughts on journalism,… have understanding of people.
The workshop was so effective in that it allowed participants to begin to understand their responsibilities at a community radio and the sort of impact their lack of understanding of this platform and its uses could have on their immediate communities. Participants gained basic understanding about what journalism is all about, and began to understand why a thorough knowledge of the profession would help them become effective” voices of the voiceless”. Revisiting the MDGs allowed them to realize that there is never a shortage of news stories in their communities, and only if they knew well “how to find those issues, identify those who are dealing with such issues, and then tell those issues through those particular people” would they be able to make a difference in the lives of so many.
