The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) in collaboration with the Gambia Press Union (GPU) under the Information, Training and Migration Project in West Africa (INFORMA) on Monday began national training workshops for journalists from community radio, rural commercial radio stations, and regional correspondents of the state broadcaster, Gambia Radio and Television Services.
The workshops, which targets and total of 45 rural-based journalists and 15 urban-based editors, are being held in three regions of The Gambia: Basse, in the Upper River Region from the 25th – 26th November, 2024; Farafenni, North Bank Region from 28th – 29th November; and Bwiam, in the West Coast Region from 9th -10th December. The workshops will conclude with a National Forum on Migration Reporting with Media Editors on December 12, 2024.
The Alkalo (Chief) of Basse, Hon. Sailu Bah, commended the IFJ and the GPU for building the capacities of local journalists on migration reporting.
“Migration is a global issue and it’s a human right. However, irregular migration has become a sensitive topic that needs to be addressed by tackling its root causes,” Hon. Bah, who is also a former lawmaker, said.
“I think we have to come up with local initiatives, and the government should be bold enough to take the lead in creating opportunities for Gambian youths to be able to live, work and create jobs for themselves in the Gambia, instead of travelling by irregular means and the risks to their lives posed by these journeys,” he said.
Bah, who said he is “impressed by the hard work and perseverance of Gambian journalists”, urged the participants to do more to improve awareness of safe and orderly migration as well as shed more light on existing local opportunities that potential irregular migrants can benefit from.
The Director of the IFJ Africa Office, Pa Louis Thomasi, said that the INFORMA Project is designed to improve the quality of information on migration, human mobility and related socio-economic dynamics in the three countries.
“Access to relevant information on migration has been a serious concern in all the three countries in this project, namely Senegal, Niger and The Gambia. The media must therefore be able to play an essential role to fill this void,” Thomasi said.
The national training workshops are being facilitated by journalists who participated in the Training of Trainers in May 2024, with a focus on how local journalists can effectively and efficiently report on migration as well as conduct sensitisation campaigns on migration.
Banna Sabally, a trainer, said issues of migration are very important and as key stakeholders, journalists should give attention to migration as they do with other issues.
“Journalists represent the communities and that is why it is very important that we are armed with the requisite knowledge and skills to better tell migration stories from a professional lens,” Sabally, who is also a trainer with the Media Academy for Journalism and Communication (MAJaC), said.
“Good knowledge of migration issues will allow us to not only limit our reporting on migration on capsized boats or deportations – the negative aspects of the subject.
“Journalists need to widen the migration coverage, on issues of internal migration, the contributions of immigrants to Gambia’s development or emigrants to the development of host countries, the positive impacts of remittances, the rights of international migrant workers, and issues of human trafficking and smuggling among others,” she said.
The Secretary General of the GPU, Modou S. Joof, said the national training on migration reporting are expected to improve the participants’ understanding of migration issues as key players in influencing public opinion and decision-making.
“The IFJ-INFORMA Project is aimed at promoting quality journalism on migration reporting with a professional and ethical approach,” Joof said in his welcome remarks.
“The training will raise awareness and trigger reflection on the effects of irregular migration on the lives of individuals, families and communities, and spotlight alternative opportunities to irregular migration available in and outside the Gambia, and promote orderly migration,” Joof said.
In May this year, the IFJ and the GPU held a three- day Training of Trainers (TOT) workshop on Migration Reporting for 11 senior journalists from radio, television, newspapers and online media from the public and private media.
That TOT and the ongoing national training workshops in rural regions is part of a series of training programmes under the INFORMA Project being conducted in three West Africa countries (Senegal, Niger and The Gambia), with the objective of strengthening and improving the quality of information on migration and mobility including the risks association with irregular migration and the alternatives available as well as providing nuanced and trustworthy information to the public.
This initiative forms part of the EU-funded project INFORMA, which is led by the Italian non-profit association COSPE Onlus and brings together the IFJ, GRDR – Migration-Citizenship-Development, SEEFAR, Open Arms and Carta di Roma.
