Media and Communications Training for 20 Sister Communicators from ten Women Religious Congregations in Ghana, West Africa, is currently ongoing at the Centre for Spiritual Renewal at Santase-Kumasi in the Ashanti Region.
The Monday, May 6 to Tuesday, May 14, 2024 training being organised by the Conference of Major Superiors of Religious-Ghana (CMSR-GH) in collaboration with Conrad Hilton Foundation and Sisters of Mary Mother of the Church, started with an Orientation Session on May 6.
The core objectives of the media training of the Religious women are to focus on promoting effective Communication of Sister Communicators in Women Religious Congregations in Ghana, developing the writing skills of the Religious to tell their own stories on projects and establishing a continuous framework to update their knowledge in media and communications activities.
The training is being attended by Sister Communicators from some Indigenous Congregations in Ghana – Sisters of Mary Mother of the Church (SMMC), Sisters of the Incarnate Word (SVI), Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus (HHCJ), Daughters of the Most Holy Trinity (FST) and Sisters of Mary Immaculate (SMI). The others are, Missionary Sisters of Holy Rosary (MSHR), Society of Infant Jesus (SIJ), Notre Dame de l’Eglise (NDE), Sisters of St Louis (SSL) and Handmaids of the Divine Redeemer (HDR).
At the orientation session, the participants were taken through the programme schedules for the training and had the opportunity to make known some expectations to the Facilitators and Coordinator of the training.
Sr. Cecilia Afari, SMMC, the Coordinator of the Media Training Project, who welcomed the participants to the nine-day training session, encouraged them to make the session fruitful by building on what they have learnt.
She appealed to the Sisters “to be present heart and soul to feel the import of the training so that at the end one will feel that she has graduated from the School of Journalism.”
Global Newswatch Media and Communications, the media partner training the Sister Communicators, manages the online news portal newswatchgh.com and offers multi-media and communication services. Newswatchgh.com is a registered Online News Agency in Ghana with the aim of providing cutting-edge news on Religion and Social Development.
Mr. Robert Dela Mawuenyegah, one of the facilitators, an astute Communications, Events and Management Professional, led the May 6 orientation session during which he encouraged the Sisters to take advantage of the training to improve on their writing and media skills.
Mr. Mawuenyegah who is also the Executive Director of Global Newswatch Media and Communications and Editor of Newswatchgh.com, reminded the participants to make use of the modules and media tools to be used to train them.
He urged them to be ambassadors of their various religious congregations to inspire others to emulate this initiative.
Mr. Damian Avevor, currently the Director of News and Editorial at Global Newswatch Media and Communications and the Supervising Editor of Newswatchgh.com, encouraged participants to seize every opportunity at their disposal to take photos and videos and write good news stories.
He said: “The skills must be nurtured every day so that you become conversant with your work,” assuring the participants that after the training, some of them would be nominated as Editors for the Sister Communicators Network.
Mr. Gameli Attipoe, a journalist and one time Senior Reporter for The Catholic Standard, the national Catholic Weekly, was full of joy as he looked forward to impacting and sharing his experiences with the participants.
He was passionate about the fact that news is based on facts and the more one paid attention to details, the right information would be captured for news.
He equally encouraged the Sister Communicators to write more on every activity they do or participate in to sharpen their writing skills.
Participants were more than happy to discover that the training session would be more practical oriented than theory since their expectations were more focused on how to write good news, handle gadgets for videography and photography, interviewing skills and website management amongst others.
They looked forward to a fruitful engagement with facilitators from Global Newswatch Media and Communications.
By Participants Sr. Gifty Anastasia Blewu, SMMC; Sr. Francisca Yaa Konadu Yiadom, SIJ; Sr. Bridget Kator, SMMC; and Sr. Emmanuella Dakurah, HHCJ
