UNESCO trains 24 community radio correspondents on designing and producing quality news

UNESCO Dar es Salaam has organized a five days capacity building training for community radio correspondents to enable them design and produce quality news and programmes on issues of local concern.

Speaking during the workshop session, the UNESCO Training Coordinator under the SDC Project Getrude John encouraged reporters to consider journalism and broadcasting ethics ​​for them to remain safe in the media industry.

“The capacity building is important for you to enhance your capacity especially on improving your way of searching, writing, producing and reporting stories to the local radios”, she insisted.

Acknowledging the importance of UNESCO’s capacity building, Ennah Mbughi a reporter from Ileje FM said that the training would strengthen her capacity and change her way of reporting. She insisted that the session comes at the right time where they are preparing for more coverage of civic education programs before the next year’s general elections.

On his side Issa Maulale, a reporter from Ruangwa FM said, the training will strengthen their journalism skills, knowledge and professionalism especially on how to identify story ideas, write radio stories, identify news sources, present news stories, and journalism ethics and law.

“The majority of us from community radios practice journalism without formal journalism training. This training will empower us and strengthen our skills, knowledge, and professionalism,” said Mr. Maulale.

UNESCO through The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) funded project, “Empowering Local Radios with ICTs for the Promotion of Rural Citizens’ Participation in Democratic Discourse and Development”, supports 25 community radios as well as the network of community media in Tanzania (TADIO).

The support is meant to ensure that people in Tanzania, especially the poor, women and girls, have the capacity to make informed decisions on issues that affect their daily lives based on access to relevant, culturally appropriate, gender responsive accurate information and knowledge.