Douglas Blessing
A group, Media Awareness and Justice Initiative (MAJI) with support from Association for Progressive Communication has concluded a one day training on data and digital reporting for journalists, civil society groups and some community representatives in Rivers state.
In his opening remarks, Okori Onyekachi, Executive Director of MAJI, said the objective of the training was to use low cost technology and participate strategies to empower rural and marginalized communities across Nigeria.
Okoro, said the project was aimed at bringing people who have been marginally disconnected from internet use, digital platforms access and data into the overall possession and ensure that they are able to become part of the percentage of people who have access to digital platforms.
He explained that “the project was to engage with the CSO’s, the journalists,and community people on the importance and the use of digital platforms, how the platform can improve their work and ensure that the right information and voice are shared.
“We hope that communities, media groups and CSO’s will be able to adopt free technology and adopt open source technologies and use that to improve the work they do and also to improve the authenticity of the reporting they put out and also to increase community voice”.
Speaking on the topic”Digital Rights: Technology Use for Rural Empowerment” MAJI Executive Director, “there are lots of people especially in these current’s content that needs to participate and become inclusive in the whole democratic process and without access to digital platforms or network connections that create these opportunities for them it becomes difficult for them to contribute to the entire and overall development of their various communities and Nigeria as a whole”.
Also Mr Ikechukwu Ahaka, sensitised the journalists on “Use of Data for Reporting”.
