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A new
communication centre opens ...
On March 31 the new Communication Centre in Nampula was inaugurated, culminating a long preparatory phase to create first an Association of independent print media operators in Nampula province, ASSONAMI, and later agreeing on the support from the UNESCO Media Project. The Communication Centre is located on campus of the Catholic University and its core objective is to strengthen the media development on the Northern province - and thus the. diversity, pluralism and de-concentration of the national media landscape. Nampula is the home town of the almost two years old fax newspaper "Wampula-Fax" and has a number of emerging journals, including "Lurio ", "Esharia" and a women's newspaper. The fact" that the center works and functions at the University campus where communication and journalism are also taught, proves do add dynamism to the infrastructure, which has set off to a very good, professional start. The centre will also functions as part of a network of other similar infrastructures. to secure more effective distribution of newspapers from other provinces, as well as facilities for training and general access to ICTs. Further to the opening of the centre, the managers were joined by colleagues from other Provinces for a basic 10 days management workshop. With Strategic Planning as the basis, a group of managers and administrators of Communication Centres (CC) and Communication Multimedia Centres (CMC) set out to define policies and regulations for management in the financial, administrative and technical areas. The IS-member group where from the CCs in Tete, Nampula and Lichinga and the CMC in Dondo and Cuamba. While a CC is a technical resource center with an aim to provide a space for the fostering of the press freedom and media development in general, the CMC is a combination of a community radio and telecentre, providing digital access and information to local communities. Managers of Radio Mozambique's Provincial Delegations of Sofala, Tete, Inhambane, Zambezia and Nampula made up the second group of management teams to take part in a course on the use of computer for management as well as on leadership techniques. With this event, the Media Project completed a training package on the use of computers and leadership techniques for a total of 45 public broadcast managers - five from each of the nine targeted delegations - initiated last December. Parallel to this, the Media Project is also completing the informatization process of the nine RM provincial stations, trough installing an initial network of three computers for each of them.
As other years, the Media Project is happy to be among the organizations and individuals celebrating the World Press Freedom Day on May 03. Also this year UNESCO plans to celebrate the date in collaboration and coordination with MISA which will present its work with the draft law on Access to Official Information, and UNESCO will follow suit with a presentation of its set of documentation recently produced in support of active freedom of the press: Manuals for Community Radios and videos on Women in the Media as well as on Small publications outside Maputo.
One of the most effective ways identified to create capacity in general, and in a country like Mozambique especially, is through learning "on-the job". Also in the Media Project we have drawn this lesson from our almost 6 years' experience: a training course have some important aspects, but having a trainer behind your back at your job, observing the way you do things and providing you with ideas on how to improve routines and methods, gives clearly better results. The Media Project has therefore focused on this particular capacitation strategy during the past years. The UNESCO partner community radios are among our partners benefiting. from this work. During the month of February and March we have as such had Celina Henriques working in Cuamba and Metangula - both in Niassa - supporting the community radio producers with routines and suggestions on how to improve the programming. Claudio Rodrigues has carried out financial inspection and coaching in the administrative area in "Bagamoyo" and Cuamba, while Rui Massingue_ has supported the technicians in Cuamba, Metangula, Chimoio and Dondo on preventive maintenance of equipment. Furthermore Nelia Taimo has worked to strengthen the community radio research and impact assessment methodologies in Milange and Cuamba, while Hanisse Sumbane has focused on socio-cultural approaches of HN / AIDS coverage in the radios Vila Manica, Gesom (Chimoio) and Homoine.
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