Salutation,
It is my pleasure to welcome you to the grand finale of the 2011 Children’s Day Fiesta. I appreciate the fact that you at this event. As we are all aware, Children’s Day is a day designed for the society to look at the general issues affecting the child. When we grew up in the late 80s and early 90s around this environment, Children’s Days were coordinated by the government and glamorously celebrated.
In those days, students of various schools were brought together and engaged in activities that would expose them to new education challenges and friends; also, their potentials were shown to the public glare, but government’s insensitive to these celebrations in recent times have affected the joy and beauty that used to accompany the event. It is on this basis that Kwande Source News decided to reactivate the celebrations, expecting to re ignite the feelings that went with Children’s Day in the past.
We started this venture in 2009. In the Maiden edition, we engaged secondary schools in Debate, Quiz and Essay competitions. In last year’s edition, in addition to the above, we added Football and Spelling Competitions; the latter for the Nursery and Primary schools specifically. In line with our desire to explore every possible angles, 2011 edition was designed for only Nursery and primary schools and the three events of the year are Football, Drama and Spelling Competitions.
We can’t claim organising an event of this magnitude has been easy because Kwande Source News is just 3 years in practice. But we feel it our collective responsibility to the children that should not be ignored. That is why we have been daring against all odds. Basically, I want to express that this is one of the reasons upon which Kwande Source News was established.
I will like to use this opportunity to say a word briefly on our genre of journalism, community media practice because so many people want us to expand and become what they call a BIGGER PAPER. Community journalism encourages journalists to address the basic values and principles of traditional journalism in light of democratisation, social change, and community empowerment initiatives. As such, community journalism is an extension, a maturing, of development communication efforts that began many decades ago to help nations grow and to assist in the rapid increase in the productivity of their IMMEDIATE society
Daniel Lerner (1958) found evidence that societies can change through the apparent influence of mass communication. Schramm (1964) further advocated the use of media because they had the ability to enhance development and social change. Citing three great communication tasks–as watchmen, as participants in the decision process, and as teachers–he said the media were able to: broaden horizons, focus attention and raise aspirations, create a climate for development, help change attitudes or valued practices, feed interpersonal channels, confer status, enforce social norms, and help form tastes .
The belief that radio, television, and newspapers could be used by the central government of a country to help build a nation is not only very important but also a misunderstood concept. Governments in developing countries interprete this to mean that they could take control of the media and that they would use their authority to tell the media what is important to tell the people. This top-down approach disenfranchises the people and the media. As a result, growth or change is temporary or non-existent in a centrally controlled media.
Nation building, through development communication, occurs as the result of people, not of government. No matter how much the government tells the media to develop people, if people don't want to develop, they don't–and nations don't develop. This is where the theory and the practice of development communication collide. The Media are often used to support a government agenda instead of being used to create cooperative ventures, to support the people's agenda, or to integrate efforts into developing a community identity.
Improvements in literacy, health, poverty, education, religious thoughts and political awareness are all elements of nation building, of people building. While governments of developing countries acknowledge that these issues are important, it is probably the government’s heavy-handed control that has caused the lack of media support of initiatives in developmental communication .
But UNESCO, in their report on the New World Information and Communications Order (NWICO) about democratisation of the media indicate, that it is a matter of human rights, the right to communicate is an extension of the advances toward liberty and democracy. "Extension of these communication freedoms to a broader individual and collective right to communicate is an evolving principle in the democratization process" (UNESCO 215). Democratizing the media cannot be simply additional facilities. It means broader access to the media by the general public, "the free interchange of ideas, information and experience among equals, without dominance or discrimination" (UNESCO 216).
When the media is democratised, it serves the people and people then use the media to obtain the information they are interested in so that they can improve their daily lives and their community. In order for that to happen, the people must participate in determining the focus of the media. There is not necessarily a hierarchy in this process. Journalists are not above the people in this regard. They are servants to, or partners with, the people of the community. All people are considered equal and central to the purpose of the media. Community journalism is a process. It emphasises the important connection between the people of communities and their media. Community journalism encourages journalists to address the basic values and principles of traditional journalism in light of new democratisation, social change, and community empowerment initiatives.
From research, Community journalism can be described using a simple three-phase process. These phases include: consciousness raising, working through the issue with the community, and issue resolution. While the resolution phase may sound like a final stage, it is just the beginning of actually solving problems and getting the community involved in solving their own challenges.
In the consciousness-raising phase, the journalist finds out what issues are of concern in the community. To do that, the journalist must become part of the community. The journalist connects to the citizenry, not just opinion leaders in the community. They need to learn: what the people think is going on in their community; what the people would like to know more about; and, how the citizens think they can make a difference and improve their lives.
In the second phase of working through issues, people have now identified–for the journalist–the issues. This can be thought of as a ‘community agenda’. The citizens have given their input to the media and enlightened them on what is important in their community. From these issues, the journalist can begin to construct news stories that highlight the peoples' point of view of what is happening, or perhaps hold meetings to find out what the community would like to know more about, how they would like to see issues addressed, collect ideas, discuss ideas, bring government into the discussions, and see how they fit into the picture. This activity leads to the third phase of civic/community journalism: resolution.
Because community journalism is a process, the resolution phase leads back to the beginning of the process. In the resolution phase, news stories and projects may be completed. This may result in a resolution to the issue originally identified by the community. But other issues may have come to the surface during the reporter's work with the community. It is at this time that these new issues are taken back to the first phase and again worked through the process. The media provide a forum–where the public knows they are the centre–for the citizens to solve their community’s challenges.
So we want to state here that Kwande Source News is your paper. We need your support to continue and actualize these lofty ideas. It is on this basis that we thank our supporters, those who have been helping our paper and especially those who gave us the financial assistance to hold this event. To share in this appreciation is TYOOR USAR, Tivlumun Ako Dzungwe who has assisted us and provided generously for this occasion. We welcome the pupils, parents and teachers; we wish YOU all a happy Children’s Day.
Thank you.
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