Six teachers within the private education institutions in Port Moresby attended a three (3) day media literacy workshop last week at the National Library’s American Corner.
It was the first of its kind experience for teachers as they underwent brief introductions on journalism and how to assemble a simple newsletter publication for their schools.
Embassy of the United States of America (USA) Public Affairs Officer Damien Wampler said the significance of having the embassy fully backing the workshop was based on the support toward journalism and media freedom.
We felt that one way we can support future journalists is to teach young people about journalism. Training teachers will then see them (teachers) over the next eight weeks imparting the knowledge and skills acquired through the workshop with students.
Teaching the students about what is journalism, the importance of journalism and most importantly media literacy like being able to read an article and differentiate whether art or fiction.
Damien Wampler
Teaching the teachers about the art of journalism will then see in the long run a well informed PNG generation.
Some of the students might become journalists but as well as understanding how to read news and have a better understanding of how news is created and printed.
The US Embassy funded this program and we invited our trainer to come from America to teach in this workshop.
Wampler
Facilitating the workshop was Benjamin Thurn and he assisted the teachers compile zines (a mini circulation of self published work). The teachers with the assistance of Post Courier‘s editor Mathew Vari, political editor Gorethy Kenneth, business editor Melisha Yafoi including Joys Eggins from the Media Development Initiative and Marlene Samar of Kina Bank were able to compile two zines.