Equal Access Trains Journalists on Countering Extremism
A non-governmental organization, Equal Access International Nigeria has trained media organisations in Communication for the prevention and countering of violence Exremism using Participatory media.
According to the Program Officer, Equal Access International Mansur Kurugu, the Media has been a major player in bringing lasting peace in Nigeria through Social and Behavioral Change Communication and Alternative Messaging.
He says Equal Access International places people at the centre of all its programming, it adopted the use of new and mainstream media in countering violent extremism, providing alternative narratives, building resilience of the conflict affected communites and fosters power in people to lead the transformative social change in their communities. Through its transmedia hub called Farar Tattabara, Equal Access Nigeria produced over 500 original episodes of its programs since 2017 in partnership with 21 radio stations across 19 northern states of Nigeria.
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“To strengthen the capacity of radio producers from these partner radio stations on integration of P/CVE messaging in their programming, encourage facilitating dialogue among citizens and local leaders in local languages to engage community members and deepen EAI’s iterative CVE messaging, Equal Access International conducts a 2-day workshop for the producers from 24th to 25th March 2021 in Kaduna.”
The participants of the workshop indicated appreciable understanding of the topics presented during the training. They also shared success and impact stories from the radio programmes they anchor in thier respective media corporations. Some also expressed an in depth understanding of how better they can write reports and conduct FGD asking open ended questions to get information of the issues concerned.
Practical sessions where conducted after each theory presentations on different topics and participants also expressed joy in learning step by step and hands on ways to use the social media and other tools to share messaging for social change, measure successes and impacts as well as prevent and counter violene extremism on both their personal social media accounts or pages across the social media platforms they are active on.” He said
Kurugu maintains that Participants also learned how to create social media contents that aims at increasing access to information of both thier followers, listeners and viewers and encourage discussions.
He further assures EAI’s continuous working closely with all partners in ensuring that the objectives of this project through these various programs are met and sustained.
Zamfara Radio and Television Service Gusau is one of the partner stations that participated in the training through EAI’s Community Reporter Bashir Kabiru Ahmad.
