UK-funded Digital Media Training Workshop, to be replicated across C’bean

Journalists and other media practitioners from Barbados, Guyana and Dominica recently completed a two-day UK-funded Digital Media Training Workshop on location here at the British High Commission and now, that training workshop will be replicated across the Caribbean.

The training was delivered by Multimedia Trainer and Mobile Journalism Specialist, Dan Mason. Held under the theme “Change Your Story”, the comprehensive workshops were designed to improve the digital media capabilities of participants and encourage a solutions-based approach to journalism. The hands on sessions were particularly focused on creating multimedia content, using mobile devices.

Mason, who will be travelling across the Eastern Caribbean to deliver training to other media professionals, has noted that the Digital Media Training Workshop will be replicated in Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, as well as in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The British High Commission meanwhile notes that these efforts coincide with the opening of new UK offices in Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, so that the United Kingdom (UK) can continue to build on opportunities, to foster new relations with key regional contacts.

Speaking with The Barbados Advocate following the training sessions in Barbados, Mason meanwhile noted that not only would media professionals be able to benefit from the training to change the way they approach story-telling, but they will be able to form a network, from which they can draw support going forward.

“Change Your Story is about learning new skills, about telling stories in different ways that make a positive benefit to your community, but for me this project is about something else. It is so unique, that the other Eastern Caribbean countries are joining us on those islands. So in a short space of time, it is a fantastic way to create a network of journalists, who all have the opportunity to collaborate. So for me, it’s not just about the story telling, it’s not just about the skills, but it is about the journalists and the communication professionals in the Eastern Caribbean forming a network,” Mason told this newspaper.

Pointing out that the “Change Your Story” Digital Media Training has its roots planted back in Nigeria where it got started a few years ago, he noted that it has since blossomed to the point where training has been conducted in four cities for 25 journalists in each of these cities and beyond.

Mason has meanwhile placed on record his gratitude to the British High Commission, for providing such an opportunity to transfer his knowledge to media professionals here in Barbados and he says that the feedback he receives, will allow him to enhance the training for others across the region.

“The (British) High Commission to Barbados has been fantastic in putting together this unique process that will benefit six countries in the Eastern Caribbean. So for the first time, as far as I know anywhere, we have got in a very short space of time, journalists and communication professionals coming together not only to look at new ways of telling stories and learning new skills, but joining together in ways that they can network and collaborate. So it’s a really unique project and I am really privileged and proud to be leading it,” Mason told this newspaper.
(RSM)