Twenty adolescents and teenagers from Sunyani West and Sunyani municipalities in the Bono region have undergone a two-day training in basic journalism, as part of the Healthy Cities for Adolescents programme.
The training is aimed at promoting the health and well-being of adolescents in intermediary cities across the world. The training also empowered the participants to amplify their voices through both traditional and digital media and serve as transformational journalists in their localities.
It further equipped the young people of Sunyani and created opportunities for them to lead city-level advocacy on issues that affect their lives and impede their aspirations.
The training is an initiative of the Foundation Botnar, through Ecorys UK Limited, to focus on adolescents’ needs, including both primary health and socio-economic factors that influence physical and mental well-being, as well as provide grants to help test, scale and enable projects that work with young people to tackle the issues they face in their cities.
This initiative is being implemented within intermediary cities in five countries; namely Senegal, Ecuador, India, Switzerland and Ghana, with Sunyani and Ho as the implementing cities in Ghana.
The Healthy City for Adolescents training in Sunyani, also called ‘Resilient City for Adolescent (RC4A) Project’, is designed to build a stronger and resilient city, working to improve the health and well-being of young people.
It is also aimed at advocating the inclusion of youth voices by ensuring that adolescents are empowered socially, politically and economically to be active citizens, who demand their rights, create jobs, actively engage in decision-making processes and ensure equitable social inclusion.
Addressing the participants, the Project Manager, Edward Ayabilah, noted that the programme would go a long way to empowering them to become active citizens.
“The project adopts a three-pronged approach about social, political and economic empowerment. This involves identifying and addressing adolescents’ needs, both social and economic, increasing adolescents’ inclusion and participation in city-level planning and development; and ensuring sustainable access to quality services targeting education, health, security, job creation and the environment”, he stated.
According to him, when a resilient city system that aligns planning and policy on the promotion of healthy cities for adolescents is created, adolescents will play an active role by getting involved at the various levels of city planning, as well as employment and review processes.
He paid glowing tribute to the consortium of partners, which are spearheading this project, especially the Global Media Foundation, Citizens Watch Ghana and the Indigenous Women Empowerment Network.
Mr. Clement Boateng, a facilitator at the training, introduced the participants to basic journalism skills, news gathering, news writing, digital tools for content creation and how to use social media for advocacy.
A Media/Public Relations Practitioner, Mr. Richard Kofi Boahen, provided some tutorials on radio production and on-air presentation.
