The UN Women Peace and Security (WPS) in Nigeria on Wednesday organised
a one-day annual planning workshop on women, peace and security reportage for journalist in Plateau.
The group’s National Programme Officer, Mrs Olubukola Ademola, said in Jos that the essence of the
workshop was to get participation of the media at various levels to work with peace building agencies.
She said the training would enable the journalists to respond to issues as they evolve, to avoid conflicts.
Ademola maintained that the media could work in synergy with relevant stakeholders and peace building
agencies in the state to promote peace and security.
She said that the media had huge opportunities to address peace and security and enhance the formation
of framework that would promote peace.
The officer added that the media roles ranged from setting agenda, monitoring and promoting issues on
accountability to amplifying various issues, creating awareness and pushing it forward for government to see and act.
She explained that the workshop would help the media to focus on women’s rights and gender equality issues
through quality reportage of gender sensitive matters.
Ademola said that a lot of work had been carried out in terms of mediation but the challenge was the under-reportage
of WPS work.
“The problem is not being able to tell the story of how efforts of WPS had transformed relationships at personal and
community levels.
“The problem is that stories do not include information on intervention of women groups in reducing violence and
transforming communities.”
She, therefore, urged the media to document the good human angle stories and good reports of the WPS media network.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that participants at the workshop expressed enthusiasm in implementing what they had been taught.
One of the participants, Mrs Saadatu Mohammed, said she had learned new strategies and activities that would enable women to speak when violated.
Another participant, Mrs Juliana Aladeye, said the workshop was timely and had given her more insight in reporting and documenting women
programmes better.(NAN)
