By Staff Reporter
Ithemba for Girls in partnership with the Women’s Academy for Leadership and Political Excellence (WALPE) recently equipped 18 young women in Honde Valley with citizen journalism skills.
Speaking to this publication, Ithemba for Girls director Bethu Tsunga said they conducted a fruitful short course that empowers young women with strong weapons to safeguard the community through monitoring the flow of information to combat misinformation.
“Our young girls are now watchdogs of the community and I’m sure they will make Honde Valley a safe community.
“We are happy that young ladies have been empowered. Last time we taught them about Law and this time it’s Journalism. They now know their rights and can disseminate information about their community,” said Tsunga.
The trainees said they were happy to get such important training and vowed to put what they had learnt into practice and report issues that affect people.
“We are happy. Thank you for this important information, we did not know that we could be that powerful.
“We now know that our smartphones are tools to make the community a safe place. We have been using them for gossiping and other unproductive things but now we will use them to help develop our community through information dissemination,” said one trainee, Confidence Mtetwa.
Ithemba for Girls Board Secretary and Trustee Patience Chimedza said the training was essential to empower young girls and women since they had no one to report to on issues affecting them in the community.
“As Ithemba for Girls and WALPE, we have seen it very important to train young women and girls citizen journalism because we have seen that there was not enough coverage of issues that affect youths, especially women as well as issues to do with development in the society.
“We have seen that it is important to teach them to report issues affecting them and they were happy because it was their first time to learn about citizen Journalism”, said Chimedza.
The trainers were Patience Tsunga and Heather Claris Buzuzi.
Buzuzi taught them on Introduction, Definition, Roles, History, Advantages and Disadvantages of citizen journalism as well as citizen journalism as a tool in promoting young women’s participation in key national issues for promoting community development.
Patience Tsunga taught them Ethics and Media Laws that will guide them to do their work within the confines of the law.
