UE/ R: The best advocate is, the one who advocate with his or her life, not words – FAWE Ghana.

BY: RAYMOND WEGWI

The Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) Ghana chapter, has organized a 3 days media training  for selected media practitioners and it’s community information centres’ officers across its operational Districts in the Upper East Region. The purpose of the training is to equip media practitioners with the necessary tools and skills to enable them carry out effective Adolescent and Sexual  Reproductive Health and Rights (ASRHR), Gender Equality (GE), advocacy and gender -sensitive communication and reporting and to also help develop competencies in the effective writing and reporting on ASRHR and GE issues within the districts which includes Bongo, kasena Nankana Municipal and West, Builsa North in the region.

Mr. Emmanuel Gazari Tongya of FAWE Ghana, who briefed the participants  the history and the works of FAWE, added that, they’re playing an advocacy role, using the media, the community information centres and other stakeholders and also collaborate with Right To Play (RTP) and Water Aid in finding out what are the stories, existing in the community and what to do, because for them as advocates , there’s no traditional practice that is bad, so all the time they try to know the rational behind  it first, and begin to pick a discussion with the practitioner to find out whether there are still aspects of that practice that have outlived it usefulness. According to him , in gender issues there’s still more to be done even though the narrative is beginning to change because first at the mentioning of gender, people thought it was Women thing and now people are shifting from that notion because there are also Men who  suffers violence from Women, adding that we’re not there yet but the signal shows that we will ge there. He  therefore call on all stakeholders especially the Media,because as they were not chosen by chance, to support FAWE, in the ASRHR and GE advocacy role, by using gender -sensitive communication and support, to address gender issues as he put it ” The best advocate is the one who advocate with his /her  life not words ”

The resource person, Mr. David WI Gartey -Tagoe who, took the participants through the Gender -Responsive Reporting and ASRHR advocacy said, the training is necessary as few people will like to talk about gender issues because it has been with us as culture and as journalists too, we have allowed commercial issues to take over the social issues in our reportage. He admonised the media practitioners to, be delibrate when it comes to gender issues reporting and report it well as these stories are not with the acts that have happened, but how do we get rid of of those things. He stated that, gender issues reporting is a very tough road, but we should begin to talk about this things in regular basis for the people to be aware of them, adding that the fight should not be what a Man can do and Woman can do as gender-equality, instead look at the Biological and Physical make-up, understanding each other limitations and, that recognition will make us live in certain way, that will help the society to move forward.

At the end of the 3 days training, he made the practitioners  to understand that, gender- responsive reporting is, about being mindful of the way gender shapes people’s experiences and ensuring that, those dynamics are thoughtfully included in news stories