The training tagged: 'Accountability Media on Legislative Advocacy in Child and Family Health', was held at the Nasarawa Guest House, Lamido Road, G.R.A, Kano State.
Different media professionals were brought together and were taken through series of interactive drilling on requisite skills required for the assignment, with a view to demanding for accountability from the legislature and policy makers on the issues of child and family health in the country.
Speaking to media participants today, at the Day 1 of the training, the Programs Manager for the PACFaH project, Ms Chioma Kanu, identified germane goals of the organisation which, among others, seeks to strengthen the gap between the Civil Society Organisations and the legislature.
Kanu, in a brief chat with NewsExpress, emphasised on the role of media in projecting the advocacy, maintaining that "there was a need for the media to stand and support the advocacy project, so as to get the government at all levels in fulfilling their commitments on various and family health issues across the nation".
She spoke further on the four basic areas of concern for PACFaH, which include policy trust, budget fulfillment, framework and commitment, saying that there is a challenge of implementation on these areas and government is not signing necessary documents on them. "So, PACFaH project is more interested in pulling out those policies to make the government do what it is supposed to do", Kanu added.
One of the facilitators and Head of Operations of ISU Media Ltd, Mr Oteh Okereke, had said earlier while stating his expectation on the training, that "there would be sucess on the training and participants would be more aware that child and family health is an issue that must be reckoned with, which would also make the responsible sector have a better day going forward".
He also, during his lecture entitled 'Accountability Media', took journalists through the teaching of objectivity, transparency in accountability media.
Mr Okereke linked media roles to civil society's effort in ensuring open government, open data and right to information, adding that accountability media seeks to increase transparency and accountability in carrying the burden of the society
The training, however, turned out to be more interactive and engaging as the media participants who, majorly were online journalists and publishers, bared their minds on the crux of the training, shared different ideas on how to expand its philosophy and dispensed strategies on how to make their discussions workable after the training.
She however appealed to the government to provide adequate funding for four (4) important areas in child and family health such as Routine Immunization, Family Planning, Amoxicillin as first line treatment for Pneumonia and ORS-Zinc as treatment for childhood diarrheal diseases, and Nutrition.
By Mayowa Okekale, reporting from Kano