Sowing the seed of Citizen Journalism in Ndhiwa

By Bob Aston and Gerald Yongo 

Free Citizen Journalism training is currently being conducted at Ndhiwa Maarifa Centre under the sponsorship of Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN). The exercise that begun on 22^nd October 2013 has intensely drawn over sixteen aspiring journalists from the seven Wards of Ndhiwa constituency to document and disseminate their peoples’ own stories as they happen.

The major motive behind ALIN’s approach in this kind of initiative is to create a responsible localized means of civic expression and social action amongst the communities, through the voices of their own reporters.

Citizen Journalism trainees during a training session

For ALIN to successfully meet this approach, they had the great support of the county representatives, the area MP, the sub county administrators and other community opinion leaders.

The aspiring trainees are undergoing free citizen Journalism training, a five days course that majors on basic Journalism skills like news writing, creative writing, Feature writing, Photographic and Interviewing skills.

The training will enable the reporters to be able to look at news from different angles and in addition give them a deeper understanding of what is going on in the outside world. The ten gentlemen and six ladies who are undergoing training at the Maarifa Centre are set to complete the training by Saturday, 26^th October 2013.

ALIN has already formed a blog dubbed ‘Ndhiwa Citizen Voices’ which gives the local communities a platform where they can share their own stories. It will also give them an opportunity to be part of a global community of men and women who are passionate about development news.

Trainees practicing camera skills

Ndhiwa Citizen Voices will be an advocacy and lobby blog that allows members of Ndhiwa and the larger Homabay County to voice the concerns that would otherwise be ignored by mainstream media. It will attempt to boost development and livelihoods of the residents by highlighting issues affecting the community.

In a short interview with Mr. Timothy Obabo, one of the ongoing journalism trainees, this is what he had to say: “the training is great. It is the first time we are getting information on citizen journalism. We are very much enlightened and now we will be able to do a number of documentations within our localities through Ndhiwa Citizen Voices”.

“I would further like to congratulate ALIN for the initiative. It is very rare to get such a unique training at the rural unless one attends a college or university institution and idea that most of us can’t afford. Being brought to the grassroot level. We now have an advantage as we can share information among the community,” he added.