CSOs Urged to Step up Public Visibility.

By Lucky Isibor.

Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have been called upon to step up their public visibility to enable the general public buy-in to their advocacy issues. 

The call was made Friday, 19 March in a closing remark by Newton Otsemaye, at the end of a four day training on "Communication and Media Engagement for CSOs" in Edo State at Randekhi Royal Hotel in Benin City, organised by Agents for Citizen-Driven Transformation (ACT), programme funded by the European Union and implemented by the British Council.

ACT focal person, Newton Otsemaye (c) flanked by Dr. Jude Obasanmi (r), the CRO of Josmaria Escriva Foundation Ekpoma and another participant at the seminar.

Newton Otsemaye who is ACT focal person noted that some members of CSOs were doing mavelously well but that members of the public were unaware of their interventions adding that the seminar was designed to sharpen the communication skills of participants.

He told participants to take the training seriously as it is a prerequisite for participating in the British Council's call for funding proposals which he said are very competitive adding that only CSOs who participated in all the training sessions will be qualified to bid.

The lead facilitator of the seminar, Kunle Olawoyin harped on the need to upgrade the capacities of CSOs to engage the media and enumerated some of the gains of effective media engagement to include, public visibility, credibility gain, breaking of barriers that block organisations from achieving their goals and the potential to raise more funds.

The lead facilitator, Kunle Olawoyin (c) flanked by some participants at the seminar.

Earlier on Tuesday at the opening session of the four day seminar, Mr. Olawoyin enumerated the objectives of the seminar to include, "to strengthen the capacity of CSOs to confidently use their words, voice and tone to deliver compelling messages, to build the capacity of CSOs to understand the development and application of strategic communication and media engagement principles for effective program planning and implementation.

"To help CSOs understand the roles and importance of communication; including identification of appropriate channels and development of evidence-based messages and contacts.

"To help CSOs monitor and evaluate the contributions of the media engagement and communication in the overall impact of their programs."

The lead facilitator took participants through several topics, including Elements and types of communication, Communication strategy and plan, Communication content development, among others.

The co- facilitator, Bukola Shaba who joined the seminar vie zoom took the participants on the various aspects of digital and social media in development work. 

She drilled the participants on the dos and don'ts in the use of social media and how to use the various social media platforms.

There were practical sessions where participants were divided into groups. At the end of the seminar, a post seminar evaluation was done to ascertain the level of success of the training.

Josemaria Escriva Foundation was well represented. The Chief Responsibility Officer (CRS) of the foundation, Dr. Jude Obasanmi led the foundation's delegation to the seminar. 

Speaking with a reporter after the training, Dr. Obasanmi said the foundation is putting strategies in place to ensure early step down of the seminar for its staff and volunteers. According to him, such step down will enhance the communication skills of members and ultimately increase the visibility of the foundation in the public space.

The Conference of Non-government Organizations, CONGOS was also fully represented at the seminar.