Press Releases

Local Voices Convenes Global Staff in Nairobi

Stephanie Barret/Internews The Internews Mekong team shares an interviewing exercise with the Local Voices team.

(September 18, 2007) Thirty-five journalism trainers, sound technicians, media coordinators, management staff and local partners of the Internews Local Voices Programs in Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and the United States met in Nairobi, Kenya in August to share training experiences and best practices to improve public health news and information for local audiences in the developing world.

Local Voices, Internews’ health journalism media development program, gives national and local journalists the information and storytelling skills to enable them to present balanced, factual stories on public health issues using local media in local languages. Since launching Local Voices in 2002, Internews has provided more than 1,100 radio, print and TV media professionals in Africa, Asia and Europe with specialized training and long term mentoring reporting effectively on HIV/AIDS, avian flu, malaria and other health issues.

During a television journalism training conducted two weeks after the Local Voices meeting, Kenya’s Local Voices Resident Advisor, Ida Jooste, said she’s “made use of almost every single new exercise that was shared at the Nairobi meeting – particularly one from the Mekong program about interviewing skills…The exercises have helped turn our interviewing technique sessions into stronger, more hands-on and participatory workshops.”

Sound technicians who participated received training in new sound editing techniques and instruction about the latest recording equipment.

“The most useful part for me was to learn about what the technicians in the other country offices are doing,” said Ethiopia sound technician Solomon Teferi. “It was very useful to hear from other sound technicians what recording devices they use and have tried out – this helps my office in selecting top-rate equipment.”

Training staff also compared notes on their media resource centers and different methods to assist journalists with research.

“I was amazed with the technological advances of the media resource center of the India office,” said Kenya Media Manager, Sandra Ndonye. “They have their whole database of HIV information so well organized that a journalist can find any piece of information within a few minutes. I am looking forward to do that with our resource center as well.”

As a result of the Local Voices meeting, the India office is working on an media resource center manual that will assist other offices, step-by-step, to create a similar database.

The Internews Local Voices staff also established an internal Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Working Group to integrate local strategies into a global M&E strategy for the Local Voices program.

Internews Network’s health journalism programs in Africa and India are funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) through the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief.  Internews Europe’s health journalism programs in Southeast Asia are funded by the UK’s Department for International Development.