Aspiring assembly women trained to access media

Some aspiring assembly women from the Upper East Region have been trained to strategically access the media to articulate issues that would win them votes.

The participants, drawn from the Bongo and Talensi districts, are expected to use services of the media to effectively campaign to convince the electorate to vote for them to win the forthcoming District Level Election.

The training programme, organised by the Foundation for Security and Development in Africa (FOSDA) and sponsored by IBIS Ghana, attracted aspiring assembly women including some retired and experienced ones, media managers and journalists.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in an interview, Ms Afi Yakubu, Executive Director of FOSDA, explained that the objectives of the training was to empower the women aspirants to engage the media strategically to articulate on issues that would win them votes.

She said the training programme was also in tandem with FOSDA’s Governance Programme which was about women inclusiveness in the decision-making process and encouraging them to actively get involved in the running of the country’s affairs.

She expressed the hope that the media training programme, being run in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions for the women, would help increase their self-esteem and get them to freely interact with media practitioners in the course of their campaign.

Mrs Yakubu said one of the major problems militating effective development in Ghana was non-involvement of women in governance and, therefore, called for radical change towards addressing the trend.

Ms Theodora Williams Anti, Programme Officer of FOSDA, said the training programme, which had the theme; “Regional Media Relations Skills Training for Aspiring Assembly Women,” was timely and strategic as the forthcoming District Level Election drew closer.

She said the training would expose the women to their constituents and increase their chances to win the election and entreated the aspirants to be resolute and confident in their campaigns.

“You must not be bordered and worried by ‘name calling’ since all these are among the campaign strategies that will be used by your male opponents to discourage you from campaigning to win,” she said.

Mr Alhassan Imoro, a Media Consultant and former Editor of the Ghana News Agency, who took the aspirants through “Building Good Relations with Media Practitioners,” schooled them on how to package their messages well so as to capture the attention of the media.

Some of the topics treated included; “How to Develop Very Good Press Releases” and “How to Prepare well during Interview Sessions Conducted by Media Practitioners”.