Recollecting my past days

By Ohaga Ohaga

I know many of you would want to know where I have been. Well, I have been pretty much around.

So why haven’t I written anything? Well, I have written so many things. I haven’t just got the time to post them.

So why haven’t got the time. Because of a very simple reason.

I was and still waiting for the new constitution to be promulgated. I didn’t want to be left behind with this euphoria sweeping across Kenya. Anyway, this is what happened.

See, sometime around May this year, just when I had published the last article, (Read Kenya’s musical chairs) I bet so much have taken place in the entertainment industry by now- but that’s a story for another day.

Ok where was I? Yeah, I was telling you about sometime in May. So like I was saying… There is this association called Journalists for Media Development – Kenya (JFMDK)

Journalists for Media Development in Kenya (JFMDK) is an association of journalists who believe in building each other's capacity and promoting scholastic media literacy in the community.

JFMDK believe that the sustainability of a diverse and vibrant media is crucial in the development of a free democratic community.

JFMD-K’S objectives are to impart, improve and help maintain quality Journalism – This they intend to achieve through members and partners we shall directly or indirectly impart relevant skills to practicing and upcoming journalists, Provide practical and material support to journalism clubs and such other groups.

When the association was formed, we didn’t have much to do- actually, we had so much to do. The only challenge was that we lacked resources.

So come May, one of the official partners Polish East Africa Economic Foundation (PEAEF) through Polish Aid officially came on board.

They granted us resources. Don’t ask me what kind of resources. But the resources were granted.

With these resources, JFMD-K started implementing the objectives.

That’s where I came in. As a manager of the project.

The project included running a pilot project in trying to improve the level of education and access to information for teenagers aged 14 – 18 from vulnerable environments in Kenya through high school journalism clubs.

Students together with their teachers were to be given necessary education to enable them serve their communities as journalists. On completion of the trainings students were to be able to produce a monthly school newspaper for their fellow students.

This was not only to aid them in good practice in journalism but also provide information for the community on various issues that are majorly ignored by mainstream media.

This project was also meant to raise journalism standards in Kenya by providing practice to future journalists.

Provide a forum for the ignored opinions to be included in national debate. Support high school journalism clubs to publish school newspapers and link the clubs through a website where they will share news content.

I know by now you are wondering so what have we done so far. Well, 60 high school students and six teachers from 3 schools have been trained on all aspects of journalism and photography.

The schools have provided their respective clubs with dedicated space where students organize their journalism activities.

These rooms have been properly renovated, customized with one nice green color, furnished with quality furniture up and above that provided with computers, with internet and other IT equipment to facilitate publishing of stories for print and online.

Given the knowledge and the infrastructure, students and their patrons have managed to develop their own editorial policies and soon will be gearing to publishing a monthly schools newspaper under the mentorship of experienced journalists from the JFMD-K.

The journalism clubs will also provide news content to a shared news website that will be accessible by over four million Kenyans that have access to the internet.

The schools we have partnered with included- Heroes of the Nation High School - Nyahururu, Muslim Girls Academy- Ngara and Olympic High School in Kibera.

The project has so far been fun, adventurous and really challenging.

I really don’t want to preempt the achievement of what we have done since all this information is available on the association website.

You can access all this info and more about JFMD-K in the site that is under construction or visit PEAEF.COM which is truly an amazing organization to see and read all about its profiles and all the projects it’s working on in East Africa.

Finally I am still good and going strong still glad to have you on board.

The association JFMD-K will be doing a huge launch come October this year so you should probably think of coming.

Before i leave, how about you looking at the pictures of the project and the team behind it.