Actualité mise à jour le
-Publié initialement le 28 Nov. 2017
As professor Vinod Pavarala visits Cameroon, Actors involve in the creation, existence and functioning of community Medias meet with him at the foyer du Marin in Douala on the 27th of november 2017.
The meeting had as objective of promoting community medias around the globe, it for this reason that the UNESCO Chair for community medias professor Vinod Pavarala visited Cameroon to sensitize, answer question, and record the worries of practitioners in this sector. Under the theme “Community Media Networking and Role in Democratization struggles”, participants of the meeting also stressed on making the media land scape more vibrant and diverse while bringing down difficulties plaguing the sector. Prof Vinod call on media practitioners to always look at what they have done for their communities and not what their communities have done for them. So, they should work with their community while ensuring they collaborate and network with Medias out of the country in order to buzz their outputs and gain more experiences. Before the end of the workshop there was a question and answer session where the issue of no salaries for workers of community medias was raised and this may turn out to affect the input of these workers. As respond, the Media guru edge practitioners of this sector to bear in mind that working for community medias will always focus on a voluntary service, participating in community development and not money. Such an answer left the participants in a dilemma on how they should survive before having the means to participate in community building. However, the meeting ended on a positive note as most participants expressed satisfaction and promise to put in to practice all knowledge acquired for the betterment of their communities.
“All what is said about community radio and how community media can sustain usually ends only on papers…UNESCO and other bodies should come to our rescue by putting all of it in reality cause in Cameroon community medias face a lot of problems…the ideas Prof Vinod gave us often do not fit in the Cameroon context but we will see how to fit them in our communities despite the difficulties we face in sustainability, financing and acquiring equipment’s… “ Aloysius likiye Journalist, catholic community Radio Buea said.
Just like him, many other participants indicated similar worries that needs practical attention from concern authorities.