Stem Van Afrika, a Foundation that supports community based media in Africa in collaboration with Social Communications Department of Uganda Episcopal Conference and CAMECO, has rolled out five-month project with an aim to help improve the community Radio Stations effectiveness and sustainability.
Speaking to AMECEA Online News via phone from Kampala, Fr. Philip Odii, the National Communications Secretary for the Bishops Conference, said that the project which will be carried out in phases has began in Kampala with a training of 20 radio journalists from 12 community radio stations, from 1st to 11th July, 2014. Among the participating radio stations are seven owned by the Catholic Church in Uganda. They include Radio Sapientia, Jubilee Radio, Radio Pacis, Radio Wa, Kyoga Veritus, Delta Radio, and Kasese Guide Radio.
The objective of the training is to build the capacity of community radio stations in Uganda in measuring and understanding their listeners/target audiences, assessing the values and impacts of their programming. It will also help them to use the data collected to make informed decisions about their programming and community engagements in order to retain/attract listeners and generate income/resources for sustainability.
The facilitators of the training came from Audience Dialogue, a Communications Consultancy based in Adelaide, South Australia, which specializes in media research, evaluation, marketing, and futures assessment.
In expressing the appreciation for the training, Fr. Odii said, "Ms. Petra Stammen from the Catholic Media Council (CAMECO) recommended us to Stem Van Afrika for this project for which we are grateful and more so happy because she is here for the training as a representative from the donors.”
The implementation phase follows immediately after the training and this will take three months.
“I will accompany the training facilitators to visit the radio stations whose staff received the training to assess how the programs are being implemented during the three months, which runs from July to October,” Fr. Odii said.
The visits are meant to assess the trained journalists on how they carry out the implementation of the acquired skills during their training and give guidance accordingly.
November 2014 will mark the final phase of the project which will include sharing of research findings, experiences and the evaluation of the implementation phase as well as building the support network for the participating radios.
Source: Pamela Adinda (AMECEA Social Communications)