The Nigeria Association of Women Journalists, NAWOJ, Lagos state chapter has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Africa’s biggest Data journalism and civic tech platform, Code for Africa, CfA to train her members in Data Literacy Training and Development.
CFA works as a non-partisan ‘change agent’ that offers engineering and editorial support, skills development, seed-funding, and business development services designed to strengthen digital democracy by empowering citizens with actionable information and by amplifying citizens’ voices, while also strengthening civic engagement for improved public governance and accountability.
CFA works through a network of chapters and other affiliate organizations across the continent. CFA will be serving the training through its women’s data science and journalists platform, WANADATA, WD.
WANADATA, WD is poised to nurture professional growth and accelerate the influence of female data experts through a peer support network as one way to use evidence-driven discourse to reframe gender perspectives on public decision-making and policy creation on development issues.
Speaking after the signing of the MoU, the Chairperson, Lagos NAWOJ, Comrade Adeola Ekine expressed her excitement about the partnership with Code for Africa to train female journalists through its Wanadata programme.
“It is coming when our members need new skills to add to what they already have to match up with their international counterparts especially as the COVID-19 pandemic has made us all adjust to the new normal in our reportage,” she said.
She added that “Part of our campaign promises was training, capacity building, and empowerment of Lagos NAWOJ members, and we have achieved this through the Wanadata Platform to mark the second anniversary of the present NAWOJ Lagos Executive in May”.
The Chief Data Officer for Code for Africa, Jacopo Ottaviani said the team is thrilled to partner with NAWOJ in a joint effort to build capacities and share knowledge around data-driven journalism in Nigeria
“The entire team believes in the power of quality, fact-based journalism in shaping a healthy public debate around the key challenges of our times, and a correct, insightful use of data can help achieve this objective,” he said.
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Mrs. Ekine encouraged members to take advantage of this rare opportunity to develop their data and digital knowledge in journalism to be able to match their foreign counterparts in these areas.
While CfA adheres strictly to the covid 19 safety protocols, the training will be held through a series of training webinars and meet-ups to build the capacity of NAWOJ members on data and digital technologies for media and journalism virtually.
The partnership will run till 2022 and members will be trained in batches every quarter. The first training is a three-day certificate-based training and will commence on the 24th till the 26th of May, 2021.