EU Harps on Media, CSOs’ Collaboration in Nation Building

Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt

To strengthen the advocacy for better society, the European Union (EU) yesterday, organised a one-day workshop for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and media organisations in Rivers State.

 The training titled “European Union-Agents for Citizens-driven Transformation (ACT) programme: CSO-Media Workshop in Rivers State,” aimed at enhancing collaboration and synergy between the two organisations.

The workshop also harped on improving understanding of keys steps for the media to better engage with CSOs as well as improve reportage that will enhance credibility and role of CSOs as drivers of change for sustainable development in Nigeria.

THISDAY observed that over 30 persons selected from the media organisations and civil society groups participated at the workshop facilitated by the British Council.

In her presentation on the Roles and Impact of CSOs in Rivers State, Dr. Mina Ogbanga, said that the media is very important in promoting the activities of the CSOs for the development of the society.

Ogbanga explained that the CSOs are important source of information for both citizens and government.

She added that “they work across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals to impact positively on humanity.”

Speaking to THISDAY at the end of the workshop, TMr. emple Oraeki, Rivers State focal person on the EU-ACT programme, said that it was a capacity strengthening programme aimed at building the capacity of CSOs in Nigeria to become credible agents of change.

Oraeki said: “What we want to do is through the EU-ACT programme is to strengthen the CSOs capacity to be able to meet up with their mandates, their vision and mission in the society.

“The capacity building has been made to be very robust in the sense that every organisation that we are building their capacity, first of all we find out what their needs are and then we design a training that would meet that need.

“So we adopted a very robust approach to ensure that we see we get results out of the training and the capacity development that we are giving to the CSOs, and we have been doing that to several means. We are also coaching and mentoring these organisations, providing them with a pure learning platform where they share ideas amongst themselves and find solutions to their challenges.

“For today’s engagements, which is basically emitting between the CSOs and the media organisations in Rivers states, basically, we want to strengthen the collaboration between the CSOs and the media. We observed that these two sets of groups of organisations have commonalities alright, but due to some challenges, they have not been able utilise that commonality to actually project what they are doing.”

 He disclosed that EU-Act programme has being implemented in 10 states across Nigeria and each of these states we have about 20 organizations.

He added that they are working with over 200 organisations across Nigeria.

A participant and Executive Director, Youth and Environmental Advocacy Centtre (YEAC), Fyneface Dumnamene, said the workshop has availed him the opportunity to meet with many media organisation and discuss on how best to collaborate in their mandates to successful society.

Dumnamene said: “I am one of the beneficiaries, YEAC is one the beneficiaries of the EU’s programme in Rivers states, we are implementing their projects on climate change and they have brought us here today to meet with the media for us to interact on a roundtable and then share ideas on ways of working together to promote the work we do and get the benefits of the work we do to the people in the society.”