Civil Society Organizations from Yaounde, Douala, Bamenda and Buea have attended a 2day Capacity Building workshop, in Communication at Hotel Azur, Yaounde on November 1st and 2nd 2019 to build and sharpen their skills in the field of communicating, pushing forward their agenda for easy public consumption.
Organized by Afro
Leadership a Non Governmental Organization based in Yaounde partnering with
Internews USA, is aimed at promoting Open Government Data, thereby restoring
people's trust in their government by making governments more open and
transparent. The workshop provides 15 participants with strong reasons why
different communicators representing different institutions or CSOs, must re strategize
their skills in communication.
After Presenting the workshop’s
objectives, participants were allowed to brainstorm on how much work had been
done as far as communicating for a Civil Society Organization is concerned. Tackling
modules on, brainstorming on public awareness, raising techniques,
understanding and practices, brainstorming on civil society organizations strategies
and messaging and workgroups created to work on fighting hate speech, encouraging
voting and citizen engagement.
Being the second phase
of the Cameroon Coalition in Digital Rights, Mr Kamdem Souop, an expert in the
field of communications who has also being present since the inception of
AfroLeadership, facilitates in the workshop with the use of videos, demonstrating
how a single video of about 2minutes can be interpreted and used to achieve the
intensions of a communicator, who has considered the professional ethics in
communication and passing across the message.
Mr Kamdem, facilitating on Public Awareness and Raising Techniques
The importance of
Diction, the mastery in the choice of words used in a report creates an impact
given the targeted audience, and if words are randomly chosen, the
objective will not be met. Mr Kamdem talks about the content of the message,
the emotions that accompany it and if the message was understood or there was a
better way of putting it for public consumption. He adds that it was important
for communicators to professionally use every situation of life to pursue and
achieve communication goals.
Mr Charlie M. Ngounu
Leader of Afro Leadership, one of the Lead of Digital Rights Coalition,
explains that it is important to know and protect Digital rights.
“Digital rights are
like Human rights but Human rights in the Digital space, if deprived of this
right, your existence will not be as blissful as expected. We move to the
digital space because we want to improve the way we live. Protecting digital
rights today is a very critical issue because this is not like the offline
space. If rights on the digital space is shut, you are digitally killed because
most of our activities carried out offline are now digitalized and this calls
for the need for these rights to be protected ”. Mr Charlie explains.
Mr Charlie Ngounu, CEO AfroLeadership
He further explains
using the example of the era when Cameroon experienced internet shutdown in
2016, for about 3months and its effects
on users. The world as a global village is linked with the use of internet and
today, most part of the world are connected to it and depriving someone from
his/her digital rights is also like depriving one of his human rights.
“The Digital Rights Coalition
has received funding from Internews USA, to build capacities of its members on communication
skills, especially in social communication, on how to use communication to
transform environment and that is the goal we are trying to pursue here, applying
it to the Digital Space. We need to make
everyone understand that protecting digital rights should be a universal quest,
which is also a good opportunity to learn how to talk to different targets and
different stakeholders. We need to know how clearly we need to build this kind
of communication expertise, adapted and adjusted to kind of topic that we
handle.”
Madam Sophie Ngassa,
the Local Representative of Internews USA, in Cameroon, a Digital Rights Advocate
and a stern activist, talks about the different techniques provided for
participants in the workshop on communication, which are essential tools for
the advocacy campaigns on digital rights to be successful.
Madam Sophie Ngassa, Local Representative of Internews
“Communication is a
very Important tool that helps us to get our message to a wider Audience and it will help us create the kind of impact we
are expecting. Participants are here to get the different tools to use; like
videos, reports which one can use to cause a social change in the work we are
doing in advocacy. We are finding a way to articulate the course we are
carrying out in our different organization”. She said
Participants focused on
the objective of the workshop, and through an exchange with the facilitators of
the workshop, shared ideas from their different civil society organizations to
better shape their skills. Some of them were delighted about the intense work
done by the facilitators and also saw the training in Communication skills
timely.
Reverend Mbog Baya Jean, President of Mission Clarite, Consumer
Association based in Yaoundé was positive about the skills and knowledge got from
the workshop.
“Usually in our field
we are defending the rights of consumers at many levels, so we use to
communicate them in all that was necessary but before attending the workshop I
had not been equipped with tools to communicate, to let people aware about what
we are doing. For me the workshop has provided me with the tools I need to
address consumers of my CSO”. Rev. Mbog Baya.
Yega Nelsa Nabila
represents Value Health Africa, an NGO with head office in Bamenda, is happy to
have attended a training to sharpen her co;;unication skills.
“I have learnt a lot on
how to effectively communicate to create impact, Value Health Africa has been
organizing event and producing videos for sensitization, and now from the
workshop I have realized my flaws and I am happy to go back and make necessary
corrections”. Miss Nelsa Nabila
Tags:
Training and Development