The Nigeria Association of Women Journalists, NAWOJ, Lagos State chapter has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Africa’s biggest Data journalism and civic technology platform, Code For Africa (CfA), to train women journalists on data literacy and development.
A statement signed by Lagos NAWOJ Chairperson, Adeola Ekine, said the CfA is a non-partisan ‘change agent’ that offers engineering and editorial support, skills development, seed-funding, and business development services to strengthen digital democracy.
Also, it equips citizens with information by amplifying their voices through civic engagement for improved public governance and accountability.
The organisation operates through a network of chapters and other affiliate organisations across the continent, to carry out the training through its women’s data science and journalists platform, Wanadata, WD.
It nurtures professional growth and accelerates the influence of female data experts through a peer support network as a way to use evidence-driven discourse to reframe gender perspectives on public decision-making and policy creation on development issues.
Speaking shortly after signing the MoU, the Chairperson, Lagos NAWOJ, Adeola Ekine, expressed her excitement about the partnership with Code for Africa saying this is an avenue to train her members through its ‘Wanadata’ programme.
According to her, “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”.
Ekine encouraged selected 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 Pandemic safety protocols, the virtual training aims at buildimg the capacity of NAWOJ members on data and digital technologies for media and journalism.
Select members are advised to commit two hours of their time to the online training to get the maximum benefits.
Also speaking, the Chief Data Officer for Code for Africa Jacopo Ottaviani said the team was thrilled to partner with NAWOJ in a joint effort to build capacities and share knowledge around data-driven journalism in Nigeria.
The Data Officer said, “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.
The partnership will run till 2022 and members will be trained in batches every quarter. The first is a three-day certificate-based training which commences on the 24th till 26th of May, 2021.
