The media are the ears and eyes of members of the public.
In an effort to strengthen the capacity of Pacific islands media to accurately report on issues that are pertinent to the Pacific, such as climate change and waste, a series of training sessions have been lined up for the next few weeks to achieve this.
The Media ManaClasses are being organised by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) through their Communications and Outreach Unit, and in collaboration with SPREP’s Climate Change Resilience and Waste Management and Pollution Control Programmes.
The ManaClasses come at an opportune time, as the Pacific gears up for two big events .
The first is the 26th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP26), which is the biggest climate change conference in the world. This year’s COP will be hosted by the United Kingdom and will be held in Glasgow, Scotland from 1 – 12 November 2021.
COP26 is important for the Pacific as it will be the last chance for all countries to agree to finalise the Paris Rulebook and ultimately limit global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
The second big event will be the Third Clean Pacific Roundtable (CPRT) from 16 -25 November 2021. The CPRT is the largest waste conference in the Pacific region, held biennially. While usually held face-to-face, this year the meeting will be pioneering new ground and will be convened virtually due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The CPRT will be hosted by New Caledonia in partnership with SPREP.
“Both events cover crucial and often technical issues pertaining to the welfare of our Pacific peoples, so it is important that we have an empowered Pacific media with increased knowledge of the events and the issues surrounding them,” said Ms Nanette Woonton, Acting Communications and Outreach Adviser of SPREP.
“We also want to build relations between Pacific Islands media and the technical experts on these issues who can assist them in their reporting and story writing to ensure that factual information is disseminated to Pacific people. This is what we are aiming to achieve through these ManaClasses,” she added.
There will be two virtual sessions weekly starting from 12 October 2021 and it is free for all Pacific media to attend.
Ms Woonton encourages all journalists and media practitioners, especially those who report on climate change and waste management issues in the Pacific, to make the most of these ManaClasses.
Registrations for the first ManaClass, which will focus on climate change and COP26 are now open. To register, simply click on this link.
For more information on the Media ManaClasses, please contact Ms Nanette Woonton at [email protected]. or Mr Keni Lesa at [email protected].