Training

Overview of VoY Journalist Training

The Voice of Youth Media Projects seeks to strengthen the capacity of Sierra Leonean youth to engage in civic dialogue and advocacy via the radio. The project targets a diverse group of youth who are being trained to become radio producers and broadcasters. Of the original group of twenty participants, seventy-five percent successfully completed the training program and they are now researching, producing and packaging their work product into 15- or 20- minute radio programs. Since the launch of the project, additional participants have joined, received training and they are now actively engaged in producing VoY programming.

 

Participants' background

The participants’ varied educational backgrounds were encouraging and challenging. Eighty-five percent of the VoY journalism trainees were awaiting their Senior Secondary School Examination results. Five percent had just completed their sixth-form examinations and their programmatic interventions were stellar for their level of education. The remaining participants did extremely well, for example: Safiatu Mansaray is a Primary School drop-out but she successfully completed the training and made steady progress until her parents disrupted her participation because they were arranging her marriage to a man who is more than fifty years older than she is. Alieu Kargbo stopped school in Form Three but he has also completed the training program and he is now the co-producer for Voice of Youth Sports Corner.
Some of the participants were uncomfortable about their current level of under-education, but they were enthusiastic about the opportunity to participate in the program. Typical of traditional African inter-generational interaction, they did not question their parents about their obligation to educate them, and they felt obliged to accept their circumstances. Alieu, who normally should be in school, cares and fends for himself. As a result of their experiences, some of the participants exhibit an advanced level of maturity. Similarly, the manner in which they convey information to other youths in similar circumstances was creative and effective.
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Training Sessions and Content

The first Training Workshop was held in July and August 2005 on a daily basis for a period of six weeks.The participants were trained in the following thematic areas:

• Basic journalism skills
• Information gathering
• News set-up
• Professionalism
• Editing news
• Interviewing techniques
• Ethics in journalism
• Packaging and Presenting News
• Press briefing coverage
• Operating Cool Edit Pro software
• Basic skills in handling broadcasting equipment.

A follow-up Training Workshop was held on specific skills such as: basic computer literacy, computer-assisted research, and photography. During the follow-up training, VoY participants functioned as trainers. The “Interviewing Techniques” session was facilitated by Alarini Bah, while Kadiatu Bangura ran the “Presenting Youth - Focused Programs” session.
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Program Constraints

• Seventy percent of the Youth Journalists are attending school which results in inconsistent VoY participation during the school year.

• Most parents believed the project would employ the Youth Journalists even though its non-profit status was consistently elaborated upon during recruitment.

• Although participants were eager to join the program, the area of journalism was completely new and they required intensive exposure to journalism professionals, their practice, as well as various media institutions.

• Lack of adequate equipment stock for each participant to access when needed was an impediment and slowed down production schedules.

• Lack of sufficient funding to circulate Voice of Youth programs to all the radio stations that are willing to broadcast them has prevented the project from expanding its constituency.

Program Strengths

• Project participants are given a unique opportunity to prioritize the issues addressed in the radio programs.

• Participants freely identify and advocate on issues impacting the nation’s youth.

• As a result of the training workshops, youth journalists are independently producing and presenting programs with only basic supervision by the staff journalists and they are working in the field conducting interviews and recording ambient sounds for their programs.

• Youth Journalists are now trainers for incoming recruits to the program.
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The Future

Voice of Youth has the potential to expand nationwide through more effective distribution and regionally/internationally via the project’s website at www.voiceofchildrenonline.org. There is a need to expand the project to respond to the significant interest from youth who have approached staff asking to be enrolled in the program.

Currently, the national youth crisis is being addressed at a minimal level, with ad hoc techniques that produce unsustainable short-term impact. There is a need to pay greater attention to the issues impacting on the nation’s youth because the cause of the decade-long war rests squarely on the neglect of their condition.

Voice of Youth serves as a unique opportunity for this marginalized group to contribute meaningfully to change within their society and it encourages them to identify as citizens whose contribution to the national dialogue is critical to the development of their country.
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