CLIMATE WOMEN MEDIA ACTION TRAINS FEMALE JOURNALISTS IN GULU CITY ON CLIMATE REPORTING

Participants during the training at NUMEC`s office. Photo By Proscovia Achomo

By Proscovia Achomo

Gulu City
 
At least 14 Female journalists in Gulu City have been trained on how to vividly report on climate change to drive action.

Hedwig Arinaitwe, the team leader at Climate Women Media Action said female journalists are being trained because they speak for the community and that they are mostly affected by climate change disproportionately compared to their male counterpart yet their voices are missing in climate decision and in climate coverage. “We are training and equipping and making them understand how climate change affects them and how they can be able to tell their own stories without third parties telling their stories,” She remarked.

Arinaitwe added that, “this way women’s voices are amplified in climate change coverage and women are able to sit on round table to discuss climate change and in the same way, policy makers are also able to make decisions that are inclusive and put women in consideration.”

Susan Achola, a journalist working with one of the Gulu city-based radio stations said the training opens a platform for women to believe that they can make it in climate change reporting, “sometimes you find you have written a climate change story but maybe you have written because of a particular climate change issue that has just happened, like an event story but you have not gone deep” she noted.  She believes that this training will make female journalists go a long way into climate reporting. 

Meanwhile, Justine Muboka, a journalist who works as a sub editor at one of the local radio stations in Gulu city requested the organizers to lobby for more funds so that female journalists are able to write as many stories as possible on climate change. “I pray that in future, you create a grant for us to do stories around climate action and more training on how we can address issues affecting the environment”, she appealed.

In the same workshop, the female journalists got the chance to be trained on how to make small paper bags.
 
Female Journalists learning how to make paper bags to boost their incomes.

Hedwig Arinaitwe, the founder of Climate women media Action said in this training mode, they also have hybrid session of training women on paper bag making. “We chose to give women an extra skill out of the newsroom content because journalism is a good field but the pay is merger yet they do amazing work for the community that’s why we thought how can journalists be better and make more money in their field, and we decided to train them,” She explained.

After the training, she said female journalists’ paper bags ambassadors are selected and encouraged to practice and perfect their skills and later they are supported to start the real business so that they are able to benefit from it and also train other women within media and outside media.

The training was also to help integrate the habit of using paper bags instead of plastic which will help citizens follow eco-friendly habits for life. 

Rose Mary Anena, another journalist commended Climate Women Media Action for these skills saying, this will help to create a new business opportunity, helping them earn more income out of the newsroom and be able to support themselves from the small income they earn from their place of work.

The same training was conducted in Western Uganda and aims at equipping 40 female journalists on climate reporting.

The training included translating complicated climate theories like climate change, climate resilience, climate adaptation and climate mitigation in the local language for easy conception when reporting.

Journalists were also equipped with data visualization skills and incorporation of AI (Artificial Intelligence) as a tool to enrich climate change reporting.