The East African Community (EAC) Secretary General Amb. Dr. Richard Sezibera has encouraged journalists from East Africa to promote positively the regional integration process.
“Be pro-EAC integration by reporting objectively about the EAC integration, on its huge benefits and enormous opportunities that exist for the people of the region and for our common good,’’ Dr. Sezibera told Thursday about 15 senior journalists and editors attending a week-long advance training on reporting inter-religious conflicts in the EAC Region, in Kigali, Republic of Rwanda.
The training is running parallel to the on-going five-day EAC conference on inter-religious collaboration to strengthen peace and security in East Africa. The EAC chief said that the role of the media in EAC integration should be to change the mindsets of people so as to easily and happily embrace the regional integration process. “But to do this, you yourselves need to develop a pro-East African mindset because with it, you will be able to see and write positively from the regional perspective” affirmed Amb. Sezibera.
Media houses and editors, he added, have unique opportunity to swing the pendulum of integration by telling accurately and in balanced way the so many positive work carried out in the Partner States.
“It is extremely important that EA journalists assisted in the EAC’s goals,” he stressed.
The Secretary General later responded to myriad of questions from the journalists on the EAC integration process. The Secretary General was accompanied by the EAC Deputy Secretary General (in charge of Political Federation), Mr Charles Njoroge.
Also present at the occasion was Miriam Heidtmann, GIZ’s Manager responsible for Peace and Security. The GIZ has facilitated both the inter-religious conference and the training of the journalists.
The scribes Thursday afternoon toured Nyamata Genocide Memorial site; a church where around 2,500 people were killed and it has become emblematic of the barbaric treatment of women during the 1994 genocide.
In the church, the scribes viewed the graphic and audio-visual displays focused particularly on the mass rape, brutalization of women and the use of HIV as a deliberate weapon of genocide. Earlier on Tuesday, addressing the opening of the journos training, the Head of EAC Corporate Communications and Public Affairs, Mr Owora Richard Othieno, said that religious issues were sensitive and must be handled with a lot of care and understanding for the unity of the East Africans.
“Your journalistic skills, experience, patience and mutual respect are absolutely necessary to report fairly on religious-related issues and events,” he counselled.
The advance training is conducted by veteran journalists and consultants, Dr. Christopher Kayumba from Republic of Rwanda and Dr. Haron Mwangi from Republic of Kenya. The inaugural inter-religious conference, which is attended by over 150 delegates from the Partner States, will close on Saturday.
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