Diaspora Africa, in collaboration with IOM Nigeria, is pleased to announce the first cohort of the Diaspora Africa Migration Media Hub. In the first year, the training will focus on “Reporting Climate Migration in Africa”.
After careful review and deliberations by a team of judges, 20 participants have emerged from a pool of 300+ applications. The selected participants stand out in their careers as journalists, news writers and content specialists working from Nigeria. The training is a 2-day program that gathers facilitators and media professionals from around the African continent to create a teaching and learning space that seeks to advance the understanding and inclusion of climate-induced migration issues and other sustainable development concerns in mainstream Nigerian media coverage.
The training will utilize various methods for increasing participant’s learning from the collective progress, lessons and opportunities of solution journalism, media social movements across climate issues and geographies. Diaspora Africa’s pedagogical methods range from interactive lectures, panel discussion sessions to group activities enhancing self-leadership, interpersonal dynamics, and technical competence in the context of climate storytelling.
This educational process is designed as ‘the practice of freedom’, in the words of Paulo Friere in his seminal work- Pedagogy of the Oppressed, a study of education in the Third World. Our educational methodology seeks, as Richard Schaull says in his preface to Friere’s book, “to enable men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”
Against this backdrop, the training provides a detailed introduction into the intersectionality of climate change, migration and storytelling through a highly practical, experiential, and interactive series of – class lectures by guest facilitators, climate writing clinic, panel discussions, case study discussions, and videos. It is a learner-centered programme which ensures participants are empowered to tell powerful stories on climate migration, and effectively apply helpful tools to source right data, broaden reach and evoke behavioral change.
The training sessions have been designed to cultivate three pillars of competencies required to develop climate migration stories that are simple, powerful, and accurate, and which resonate with the lives of their audiences: Climate Change and Migration, Data, Ethics and Effective Communication and Social Innovation.
“We are so excited to be doing this for the first time, and doing it with such dedicated and committed young people who are already doing the work,” said Chimee Adioha, Diaspora Africa’s Co-founder & Editor. “We understand that the selected participants are already aware of the natural emergency that is climate change, and how this has come in contact with migration. They have gone to publish news stories, podcasts, featured articles and led conversations around climate change or migration. They are all coming to the training with something to work with. We feel this is the right time to do this and we are super privileged to have them join us this year as we support their journey as well as empower and strengthen what they are coming with”.