WEP ORGANIZES MEDIA TRAINING ON PEACE/PVE IN BENUE STATE

The media plays a vital role in promoting lasting peace or exacerbating tensions in divided societies. Journalists and influencers can help to diffuse ethnic, religious or political crisis by empowering citizens with requisite information to make informed decisions. Women Environmental Programme (WEP) recognizes the need to put media practitioners and influencers at the forefront of her peace building and development initiatives to ensure proper reportage and help build sustainable structures for development.

WEP hosted journalists and influencers to a Media Training on Peace/PVE. This engagement was necessitated by the need to eliminate information gaps and empower citizens with adequate information to make informed decisions. WEP believes the media plays a role in setting the tune for peace building and development initiatives.

Participants were made to understand the importance of conflict sensitive reporting as a tool to effectively fight negative ideologies that foster violent extremism.

These activities are part of WEP’s PVE project which is funded by Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF) being implemented under a consortium arrangement titled: “Connecting Women and Youth In Violent Extremist Prone Areas through Empowerment and Skills Acquisition In Benue State”. The various interventions of the project seek to strengthen the security consciousness and structures of the communities, facilitate resolution of disputes within and between communities, raise awareness against violent extremism, and enhance the skills of women and youth for improved livelihoods in order to reduce their vulnerability to recruitment and radicalization to Violent Extremism.