By Magdalene Ukuedojor
The Africa Initiative Manager of Solutions Journalism Network, Caroline Karobia, says integration of Solutions Journalism (SoJo) in newsrooms and schools is a game-changer for African youths.
Karobia said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at the Solutions Africa Summit held in Abuja to appraise the uptake and impact of SoJo in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania.
“Some of the achievements that we’ve had, so far we’ve had like 70 newsrooms that have been supported in Nigeria and East Africa to just integrate and work on solutions-oriented stories.
“But apart from that, we’ve trained thousands of journalists across the region on how to do solutions stories.
“We’ve worked with mentors, we’ve worked with coaches and we felt that it was not even enough, so we went to universities, worked with students and worked with lecturers.
“We trained lecturers on how to develop courses and curriculums on solutions journalism.
“We are really excited because a number of universities in these two regions have integrated SoJo courses.
“Apart from that, we are really, really excited because two universities in Kenya integrated SoJo as part of their curriculum and last year we had students sitting for exams using the SoJo curriculum in Kenya.”
Recounting the Nigerian experience of adopting SoJo for five years (2020-2025), Managing Director of Nigeria Health Watch, Vivianne Ihekweazu, also reeled out school uptake of the initiative.
“We’ve worked with Pan-Atlantic University and we’re now looking to also work with other universities so that when journalists are now trained in the future, that solutions-oriented reporting is part of the curriculum.
“By the time they come out, they’re already thinking about reporting news through a solutions-oriented lens.
“We’re also looking at how secondary schools are also reshaping how they learn to tell stories.
“An example in terms of looking at sustainability, we’re working with Marie Stopes International and so we’re working with them to train journalists on how do they report around family planning.
“That is now how the sustainability of this way of telling news will continue.
“From one generation to the other, we’ll have more newsrooms, more reporters who are coming up through the ranks already with this framework in mind.”
Ihekweazu maintained that SoJo’s success in Nigeria was not without challenges.
She listed limitations in generating and documenting evidence-based data across the country, calling for right-based data to boost the SoJo model and its attendant impact in all sectors. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Ismail Abdulaziz
