Search for Common Ground a peace building organization currently operating in the Niger Delta, with support from European Union has organized a three day digital media literacy training for the youths of the region in order to keep them abreast of what is going on in the cyberspace.
The training Search said was to empower the participants who were mainly civil society organization persons for peace building in the region using the cyberspace stating that most of the conflicts that happen offline always start from online.
Speaking at the weekend at the training which held in Yenagoa, Sunny Dada, the Mass Media and Information Management Coordinator of Search for Common Ground disclosed that it has exposed the participants on basics digital tools that they can use to build peace online to make the Niger Delta Region a better place to be.
He said the training which was organized by Search in partnership with SDN, PIND and AAPW, was to build capacity of the participants, to critically analyze media contents in order to counter the proliferation of disinformation,and hate speech going on online which also fuels conflict.
Sunny Dada said: ”Through the training, we have built the capacity of the participants to critically asses and analyse media content in a bid to counter the proliferation of disinformation and hate speech online which fuels social tension.”
“For this training, we are looking at how we can focus on online conflict narratives not looking only at traditional conflict drivers because we realized that to resolve the conflict in the Niger Delta, traditional approach alone will not work, so we also have to bring in the digital approach.”
“A lot of things you see offline, the conversation started online. That is why, we are empowering youths that are the actors so that they are armed and when they go back, they create these key massages to counter these conflict narratives that are flying here and there online.”
“The most important thing in this training, is that we are teaching them some of the basic tools that can help them in their works like digital peace building tools and digital media literacy tools.”
“The tools will help them to verify and identify what is misinformation, disinformation and mall-information. Tools that can help them verify fake videos and images on line and tools that can help them create likely messages that can counter conflict narratives online.”
“The youths as get keepers, are mainly our target because that is where we have the most beneficiaries. We realized that a lot of these conflict drivers are within our communities and our thinking is that if we take it from the community, then we can make serious impact and that is why the project is called community centered approach.”
Giving a progress report on the project so far, Sunny-Dada said that for each component of the project, there are specific target audience adding that: “we have trained spokes persons of Police, Nigerian Army JTF, NSCDC and those within the combat unit,on human rights, conflict sensitivity and do no harm principles and we expect that it trickles down because the expectation is that, when we train them, they are expected to go back and do a step down.”
Speaking earlier, Fola Shade, the Mass Media and Management Officer in Bayelsa State had advised the participants to be intentional and pay attention to every details throughout the Training.
She said there is every need to tackle the drivers of conflict in the communities adding that: “we cant do that without bringing the people to bear.”
“We want to have a people oriented project that will help tackle every form of conflict by giving national and international attention to oil bunkery, theft and all forms of conflict in the Niger Delta Region.”
She urged them to put in all their time so that at the end , they will go home with some basic tools that will aid their job.
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