The UN Women Peace and Security (WPS) in Nigeria on Wednesday 5th July, organized a one-day annual planning workshop on women, peace and security reportage for journalists in Plateau State.
The group’s National Programme Officer, Mrs. Olubukola Ademola, while speaking at the event, said that the essence of the workshop was to get the participation of the media at various levels to work with peace-building agencies to drive women’s inclusion in peace and security in the State and Nigeria in general.
She said the training would enable the journalists to respond to issues as they evolve, to avoid conflicts and enable them to create adequate response mechanisms to ensure peace and security.
According to her, UN Women focus is to achieve gender equality, and strategic political empowerment of Women in Nigeria and give them a voice that will make them add value to National development. She hinted that the group is also working relentlessly to ensure that women are economically empowered and ensure that the numerous challenges faced by Women are tackled; enhancing their capacities in contributing to peace and security.
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 considerable opportunities to address peace and security and enhance the formation of a 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 push it forward for the 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 further stated
While presenting the status report from 2019 to date, Mr. Wika Gofwen, the WPS Media Network Coordinator in Plateau State stated that the Media Network is an offshoot of the UN Women which is aimed at amplifying the voice of women positively in all facets of life and give their activities the required visibility.
He hinted that the Network was a collection of various Media Practitioners which include Print, electronic and online Media. He urged the participants to take the workshop seriously and work towards achieving the mandate of the UN Women.
Other Participants at the workshop expressed enthusiasm for 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
programs better.
