February 10, 2012

Covering Poverty and Food Security, 22-23 April, Jhb

Withered bean plants

Food riots across Africa, sparked by the global economic crisis, have made food security the continent’s most pressing issue. Is your newsroom equipped to cover the issue quickly, intelligently and in depth?

Africa is home to three-quarters of the world’s “ultra-poor”. Food aid may solve their immediate hunger, but longer-term solutions are needed to bolster food security.

Sign up your journalists to the Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Programme’s two-day training workshop on Thursday and Friday 22-23 April in Dunkeld West, Johannesburg.

The Workshop will be facilitated by a veteran journalist who is also an experienced trainer. Journalists will receive coaching on writing stories. Interactive practical sessions will equip journalists to find, plan and write compelling stories on poverty and food security in future.

More about the course

Newsletter design using Open Source software 15-17 June, Jhb

newsletter

newsletterB

frayintermedia presents a three-day course on effective newsletter production using Open Source software.

Open Source software applications are available to individuals and organisations at no cost, usually available via download from the internet.

Targeted at non-government organisations, the workshop will provide an overview of conceptualization, editing, design and distribution of newsletters as an effective communication tool.

The workshop is targeted at NGO communication officers seeking to improve their internal and external communication.

The programme includes:

  • Identifying the target audience
  • Conceptualising the newsletter
  • Content, content, content – generating ideas
  • An Introduction to Design and Layout Principles
  • Introduction to Open Source Software
  • Effective branding
  • Practical use of software to design your newsletter
  • Preparing artwork for distribution

Space is limited due to the interactive nature of the training. Early bird and group discounts available.

The workshops will be held at frayintermedia in Johannesburg on June 15 – 17, 2010

Cost: R2,400 excluding VAT

To register please complete and return the reply form, together with payment confirmation to:
Samkele Nkabinde on 011 341 0767 or email snkabinde@frayintermedia.com

Reply form

Knowing your tweets from your facebook and your blog, 8-10 June, Jhb

Twitter Birds

Interactive social media marketing tools.

frayintermedia presents a three-day modular course on interactive social marketing tools that provides an overview of the existing tools as well as the skills to use them effectively.
  • Do you know your tweets from your twits?
  • Your myspace from your facebook?
  • Can Youtube be an effective marketing tool or is it a teenager’s space?
  • Are you able to blog effectively?

Do you feel comfortable exploring new media initiatives in your business? As a communicator, do you feel confident advising on various social media tools?

Find out more about the course

including dates, cost and facilitators.

Knowing your tweets from your facebook and your blog, 8-10 June Jhb

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Date and Cost

The workshops will be held at frayintermedia in Johannesburg on Tuesday to Thursday, June 8 – 10, 2010. The cost is R2,400 excluding VAT.

Space is limited due to the interactive nature of the training. Early bird and group discounts available.

Registration

To register please complete and return the reply form, together with payment confirmation to:
Samkele Nkabinde on 011 341 0767 or email snkabinde@frayintermedia.com.

Microsoft Word version for emailing

Adobe PDF version for faxing

After completing the workshop, you will have:
  • An overview of social marketing tools, their effectiveness and their uses
  • Guidelines on using facebook effectively including starting a fan page
  • Guidelines on using Twitter, growing your followers and effective tweeting techniques
  • Understanding how You Tube works, how it can be utilized to grow your profile
  • An understanding of new trends in internet usage
  • Tips on how to develop one’s profile across all popular social media and integrate information
  • Blogging guidelines
Directions

frayintermedia is in Suite 252 on the second floor of the Dunkeld West Centre, on the corner of Jan Smuts Avenue and Bompas Road. The Fournos bakery is in this centre. Click here for driving directions and a Google Map.


Twitter Birds

Interactive social media marketing tools

frayintermedia presents a three-day modular course on interactive social marketing tools that provides an overview of the existing tools as well as the skills to use them effectively.
  • Do you know your tweets from your twits?
  • Your myspace from your facebook?
  • Can Youtube be an effective marketing tool or is it a teenager’s space?
  • Are you able to blog effectively?

Do you feel comfortable exploring new media initiatives in your business? As a communicator, do you feel confident advising on various social media tools?

frayintermedia is offering an introductory workshop on new media tools targeted at all communicators – journalists, public relations executives, marketers – exploring new platforms to get their message across.

The workshop includes:

Introduction to interactive social media tools including:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • You Tube
  • My Space
  • Googlewave
Using media tools effectively including:
  • Using Twitter for networking and intelligence gathering (finding sources for journalists)
  • Profiling initiatives on facebook
  • Ethical considerations
  • Building relationships and starting conversations with your audience
Effective blogging with a focus on:
  • Understanding how readers interact with blogging
  • Guidelines for effective blogging
  • Understanding and growing your audience
  • Linking your blog to social media networks
  • Writing skills
  • Effective blog structures
  • Good writing tips
  • Self-editing Skills
  • Multimedia tools to consider (eg. Videoblogging)

The facilitators:

Saaleha Bamjee-Mayet is a freelance journalist who predicts that 2010 will see an increased number of twitter users rating the service as their preferred primary news source. She has been blogging in her personal capacity for just over four years, garnering a nomination for Best Writing on a South African Blog in the 2007 SA Blog Awards and even marrying an interested reader.
In her time at frayintermedia she project-managed the company’s move to implement a blog-based format for their website. Saaleha tweets, facebooks and flickrs towards building her online profile, expanding her network and securing her freelance work.

Paula Fray is a journalist, trainer and writing coach who moved from print to online journalism with her appointment as regional director of a global development online news agency. As such, she has seen first-hand how multimedia skills have to potential to tell powerful stories that engage readers. And, she knows that impactful storytelling starts with the message and an understanding of how to use the medium effectively.


Covering Poverty and Food Security, 22-23 April, Jhb

Withered bean plants: Farmers in the larger Nakuru area in Rift Valley province have experienced maize and beans crop failure in 2009 due to poor rainfall early in the year. © Jane Some/IRIN

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Workshop objectives

Covering Poverty, Food Security & Social Protection aims to increase and enhance news media coverage of poverty and poverty policy interventions in the Southern African Development Community region.

The workshop is an RHVP initiative, funded by the United Kingdom’s development agency, UKaid.

Cost and Registration

The cost of the workshop is R600.00 excl VAT. Please return the registration form to Samkele Nkabinde at snkabinde@frayintermedia.com or contact her at +27 11 341 0767 to attend.

Download a Microsoft Word registration form to your computer, or a PDF version.

Directions

frayintermedia is in Suite 252 on the second floor of the Dunkeld West Centre, on the corner of Jan Smuts Avenue and Bompas Road. The Fournos bakery is in this centre. Click here for driving directions and a Google Map.


Withered bean plants: Farmers in the larger Nakuru area in Rift Valley province have experienced maize and beans crop failure in 2009 due to poor rainfall early in the year. © Jane Some/IRIN

Withered bean plants: Farmers in the larger Nakuru area in Rift Valley province have experienced maize and beans crop failure in 2009 due to poor rainfall early in the year. © Jane Some/IRIN

Food riots across Africa, sparked by the global economic crisis, have made food security the continent’s most pressing issue. Is your newsroom equipped to cover the issue quickly, intelligently and in depth?

Africa is home to three-quarters of the world’s “ultra-poor”. Food aid may solve their immediate hunger, but longer-term solutions are needed to bolster food security.

Sign up your journalists to the Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Programme’s two-day training workshop on Thursday and Friday 22-23 April in Dunkeld West, Johannesburg.

The Workshop will be facilitated by a veteran journalist who is also an experienced trainer. Journalists will receive coaching on writing stories. Interactive practical sessions will equip journalists to find, plan and write compelling stories on poverty and food security in future.

Programme Day 1

  • Introduction to covering poverty – plus film screening
  • Debate with local experts on how the media covers poverty
  • Introduction to the RHVP, social protection & cash transfers
  • A deeper look into poverty in South Africa and the region
  • Expert on local anti-poverty project
  • Interview opportunities with experts and facilitators

Programme Day 2

  • Generating poverty story ideas
  • Planning stories on poverty
  • Sourcing information on poverty and anti-poverty interventions
  • Questions & answers on the RHVP and anti-poverty interventions
RHVP top logos_2

The workshops are offered in partnership with:

ukaid_large


Research scientists translating to ordinary mortals

There are scientists in Southern Africa doing incredible, ground-breaking research, but their work doesn’t get into the media because scientists talk in their own language – which journalists don’t usually understand.

 To help scientists get their work into the public domain, frayintermedia will present a morning session to scientists at a workshop in Gaborone on March 12, sponsored by SAASTA-NSTF (the South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement, and the National Science and Technology Forum).

Michael Schmidt will be teaching scientists how the media operates, how to get their messages into the media, how to break down complex stories and make them easily digestible. Once the scientists understand the media landscape, they are better able to communicate  their innovations and research to the general public.

 Bridging the gap between science-speak and ordinary language and finding the appropriate media outlet are not the only challenges to a scientist in Botswana, however.

 “Botswana has the reputation of having a very stable democracy, but it does not have the type of vigorous media and plurality that it could have,” notes Schmidt. He says there are legal challenges characteristic of the Botswana media environment.

Newspapers learning in community

How can small community newspapers and magazines be made viable? Delegates from several provinces, sponsored by the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA), will be pooling their experiences and ideal solutions at a two-day workshop.

 frayintermedia’s Michael Schmidt will be a speaker at the forum for community media on February 11 and 12, convened by the MDDA, the Government agency mandated to assist “historically disadvantaged communities and persons not adequately served by the media to gain access to the media”.

 For small media, keeping their heads above financial water is a major challenge. Issues such as revenue generation, cash flow, managing the relationship with clients, printing and distribution, and sales and marketing will be debated in depth.

 frayintermedia conducted feasibility studies for some of the media now sponsored by the MDDA. Examples are Agenda Magazine in Mafikeng and Penopele News, a community newspaper in North West. Agenda Magazine and Penopele News are unusual publications, as both are bilingual, published in seTswana and English. Both operate in areas with seTswana radio stations, but no other source of printed seTswana content.

Alex Pioneer, a community newspaper distributed in Alexandra in Gauteng, will be another attendee at the event. Sponsored by the MDDA, frayintermedia mentored Alex Pioneer during weekly visits for six months in 2009.

Getting the message across during the Soccer World Cup

frayintermedia_YDF_gtz_logos

frayintermedia will conduct a two-day media skills programme for GTZ in January 2010, including practical coaching on being interviewed for radio and television.

The massive global media coverage South Africa will receive during the 2010 Soccer World Cup will shape the world’s perceptions of the country and the continent with a lasting effect. Over a billion people in more than 200 countries are expected to simultaneously follow every event of the month-long tournament between the world’s top 32 soccer-playing nations.

The World Cup is thus a great opportunity for projects and organisations to showcase their initiatives and achievements. Knowing and understanding the media landscape will, however, be crucial for project leaders and communicators to get their message across in a way that will ensure their organisation’s future success.

The two-day course consists of a theoretical and a practical part.

Day One

aims at providing a better understanding of media landscapes, reporters’ needs and how newsrooms operate. The course will look at ways to engage the media successfully and address the issue of media laws and ethics and the interviewees’ own rights. It will furthermore provide participants with the necessary tools to formulate key messages, and to get these across convincingly in writing and on radio and TV.

Day Two

will focus on the practical application of all theoretical learning and provide participants with opportunities to handle different types of interview situations. The aim is for participants to gain confidence and become increasingly aware of the importance of self-conduct and speech patterns, in particular on camera.

Aim of this workshop

The overall course aims at enhancing the participants’ understanding of how the media in SA and Germany works and strives to empower communicators to handle media requirements in a professional manner, especially at a time of increased media interest and global focus on the country.

The client

The two-day training course frayintermedia will conduct on behalf of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) will prepare team members and partners of the GTZ Youth Development Through Football (YDF) projects for the heightened 2010 media interest and help communicators to become successful ambassadors for the organization and its project activities.

Outcomes for the media training

By the end of the two-day course, participants are expected to:

  • Understand the local and the German media landscapes in terms of their reach and prime interests
  • Understand what makes news in local, regional, national and international media
  • Understand how newsrooms operate and therefore how media relations can help in terms of getting key message across;
  • Have gained basic communication skills necessary for the production of media tools and the handling of Q&As and media interviews.
ukaid_large

Malawi and Botswana workshops fully subscribed

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Mentoring staff at Alexandra community newspaper

In June 2009 the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) commissioned frayintermedia to provide turnkey training and mentoring to the staff of Alex Pioneer, a start-up newspaper serving the Alexandra community.

We gave the staff of Alex Pioneer an intensive, week-long course on editorial and business skills. The training was followed by a five-month mentoring programme in which frayintermedia’s trainers made weekly visits to Alex Pioneer to assist the staff with all aspects of establishing a successful community newspaper.