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As an empowerment drive, the newly-established Citizen Journalists Association of Zimbabwe is poised to improve the dissemination of news and information on events happening in various communities in the country.
Stakeholders drawn from different sectors and organisations across the country representing underprivileged and marginalized communities attended a one-day virtual training workshop on 18 August 2021. The workshop was sponsored by Women-in-News (WIN) through its Social Impact Reporting Initiative (SIRI), which is funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), under the theme ‘Citizen Journalism for Community Development and Accountability.
The objective of the training was aimed at empowering citizen journalists drawn from different sectors and organizations on basic journalism skills, to identify and fight fake news on social media, as well as assisting the trained journalists in the news-making process.
The trained citizen journalists will be expected to also deliver news and information on events happening in their respective communities to the mainstream media and the world for possible publication after being verified by trained journalists in the newsrooms.
Gweru urban Member of Parliament Hon Brian Dube thanked Women-In- News (WIN) for sponsoring the training program. He explained that it was going to assist ordinary people in fighting and stopping fake news or hate speech on social media, especially now the country is preparing for the next elections in 2023.
Hon Dube called upon the donor community to support similar training programmes as they will change the behavior of people when using social media platforms.
He called upon Citizen Journalists to work with media houses for their stories to be told easier and accurately in real-time.
On the sideline of the training workshop, a new organisation called the Citizen Journalists Association of Zimbabwe (CJAZ) was formed to represent the interests of Citizen Journalists in the country.
A new interim executive was elected:
Chairperson: Cornilia Selipiwe – Gweru Residents and Ratepayers Association (GRRA); Vice-Chairperson- Nobuhle Mahlahla- Youth Essence (YE)
Treasurer: Tinaani Nyabereka
Secretary-General Gracia Mashangaidze – Young Women Christian Association (YWCA).
Committee members are Tendai Chifunyise and Venancia Chikwavaire- Avantgarde.
Veteran Journalist and Editor of The Sun Newspaper, Willie Mponda will assist the organization with coordinating its activities until its first AGM later in the year.
The new association will soon embark on the creation of chapters in all major cities, towns, and remote rural areas of the country so that the marginalized members of the communities can also tell their stories and bring them to the attention of policymakers and the world in general, issues affecting them.