African Workshop - January 2012

The journalism environment in Africa can be described with several key trends:

1. There is a lack of journalism training available for the average African journalist, Christian or not. There is only one journalism program which is purposefully Christian on the continent of Africa and that is at the Uganda Christian University (www.ucu.ac.ug), which is an Anglican institution.
2. There is a lack of money to train African Christian journalists. These journalists apply to come to the United States for training at WJI conferences and courses but the expense is prohibitive.
3. There is tension between the Christian parts of Africa and the Muslim and animistic parts, creating a hostile environment for the Christian journalist.
4. There is lack of theological education to equip the African Christian journalist to be better trained to engage the very pluralistic and at times hostile environment in which they report the activities of a holy God and a sinful Man.

Current Need for the African Workshop

The institute receives more inquiries from African Christian journalists than from any other part of the world outside of the United States. We currently have no provision for sponsoring foreign journalists to come to the U.S. for our courses and conferences. These African journalists are presumably left without solid training in the intersection of their Christian faith and the calling of journalism. Consequently, there is a great need for a non-traditional and rigorous school of journalism to provide training for the many placebound Christian journalists working in news organizations in Africa. By taking the WJI training to them, we can facilitate their growth in reporting and writing from a Christian worldview.

THE TARGET CONSTITUENCY

The target constituency for this African journalism workshop is working journalists from throughout the African continent. The workshop will be conducted in English.

Pan-African Journalism Workshop Program

This program calls for the institute to send a team of American instructors to Africa for up to two weeks to instruct and mentor African journalists. The workshop will be conducted in English (not French or Portuguese). The instructors will stay in campus housing along with the students and all will eat on campus together. The curriculum will consist of instruction in the morning and reporting assignments in the afternoon, with evenings given over to editing and consultation. There will be a nice closing dinner with an invited speaker. Follow-up will be undertaken by the institute using one of the teachers from the workshop. There will be time for the instructors to travel a bit while they are in Africa for the workshop as part of their compensation. We have been working with a couple of African universities in Uganda to host the workshop.

Expected Outcomes of the Program

1. Each of the attending journalists will learn how to better report the news of their country in a compelling and factual manner.
2. Each of the attending journalists will learn to be more sophisticated in the integration of their Christian worldview thinking and their calling as a journalist.
3. Each of the attending journalists will bring back encouragement to the Christian journalism community in their respective countries.