The Civil Society-Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN) on Wednesday began a training for journalists to increase nutrition reportage and visibility to mobilise critical stakeholders for action against malnutrition.
CS-SUNN’s Executive Secretary, Mr Sunday Okoronkwo, said this at the opening of the three-day training in Abuja.
According to him, the partnership with the media is critical to winning the fight against malnutrition.
Okoronkwo, said that the media had contributed to the successes recorded so far, in the fight against malnutrition, adding that more needed to be done by the media to engerder change.
He pointed out that in spite of the successes, four out of 10 children were still stunted in Nigeria, adding that the situation was worse particularly in the northern part of the country.
“The media needs to come in stronger to hold relevant stakeholders accountable to their responsibilities by ensuring that no child dies of preventable death, particularly malnutrition.
“We need to work together to create the change we want to see by increasing our impactful media reportage that will push the government and key stakeholders to act,” he said.
Mrs Lilian Okafor, Communication Officer, CS-SUNN Abuja, said that the training has its theme as “Strengthening the Capacity of Journalist for Improved Nutrition Reportage and Visibility.
Okafor said that participants were drawn from print and broadcast media in Kaduna, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger and Abuja.
She said that nutrition advocates, including CS-SUNN still struggle to find ways to raise awareness, build understanding, change perceptions, and motivate target audiences to act on nutrition issues.
According to her, one pathway to quickly disseminate information, increase understanding, build momentum, and unify support for nutrition is to engage the media.
“It is, however, important to build the capacity of the media to bring to the fore, issues relating to nutrition while bringing to limelight funding gaps and placing nutrition in the front burners of the agenda of policy makers.
“This will go a long way in improving funding for various nutrition interventions.”
She said that the key objective of the training was to improve the understanding of the media on the impacts of malnutrition for effective nutrition reporting to improve the situation in the country.
She added that the training was also to secure the commitment of the media to write impactful human angle nutrition stories to keep the discussion going and generate response from stakeholders.
One of the resource persons, Mr Akin Jimoh, Executive Director, Development Communication Networks, urged journalists to pay attention to data and evidence-base journalism with a view to create a clearer picture of the situation.
Jimoh also urged journalists to focus on human angle stories that touch the heart and push target stakeholders to respond by taking recommended actions. (NAN)
