The workshop was funded by the European Union and implemented by the British Council, through the Agents for Citizen-Driven Transformation (ACT) programme. The workshop took place at Novotel Hotel in Port Harcourt on 5th September 2022. Many media houses, bloggers, and influencers were in attendance along with D-Ability Initiative, and other EU-ACT partners CSOs in the State.
EU-ACT Partner CSOs, Represented by their Executive Directors
Some key takeaways:
- STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP: There is a need to make the media house a part of our project from the proposal stage. Allow them to make input to fine-tune the project. This would promote our credibility as a Civil Society Organization (CSO) and make the media house a beneficiary of some part of the budget allotted for media publicity.
- RECIPROCAL INVITES: CSOs and media can invite each other as resource persons on issues related to their thematic areas of focus.
- KNOWLEDGE SHARING: CSOs and media houses can invite each other for training that will build or strengthen their professional capacity for development.
- COLLABORATION: We need to include the media when planning stakeholders’ engagement /town hall meetings.
- VISIBILITY AND EXPOSURE: In all our social media and other media handle, tag, and acknowledge each other. That way, we give each other visibility and exposure.
- The media need us as much as we need them. There is a need to strategize ourselves for relevance.
- We need to be sound and authoritative in our thematic focus areas so that the media will look for us as resource persons from time to time.
