By: Alex Digi
About 15 journalists in Western Equatoria State particularly Yambio County over weekend organized a roundtable discussion to deliberate on challenges facing them in their work.
The major aim of the round table meeting was to brainstorm on the key impeding challenges that affect Western Equatoria State Journalists in regards to service delivery particularly those ones at the circumference of Yambio County.
The event was organized by the state Union of Journalists in South Sudan and concluded within the interval of five hours pointing out ways forward to addressing the challenges facing Journalists in the State.
In the round table discussion, journalists raised lack of access to information, lack of capacity building especially women journalists, weakness in doing the work and the welfare of the journalists as the major challenges that have been hindering their activities in the State.
Speaking to the media after the discussion, Christopher Gaaniko the Chairperson of UJOSS in Western Equatoria State said that the challenges and the recommendations presented by the Journalists would help the Union to find amicable solutions.
“Today we came to a place called Bazungua on top of a Hill as journalists of Western Equatoria to sit and interact among ourselves, to know ourselves better and share our experiences. It has been a pleasure that we had more than 15 journalists who turned up from different media houses Anisa FM, Yambio FM and other media houses, during this time we have spent here, we had a fruitful discussion, we have jointly discussed our problems, which are facing us in the state and also came out with ideas on how we can be able to address those problems” Ganiko said
However, Ganiko applauded the journalists for having presented their challenges and promised to ensure improvement of their welfare in the State.
“We are very glad that from next week we shall be able put most of these things into action to see into it that the welfare of the journalists are improve, the capacity of the journalists are improved, we emphasizes so much on the unity of the journalists and journalists from different radio stations were able to bring out what they can do to unite themselves so that we deliver the services” said Christopher
On his part, Sabri Isaac Khamis, a freelance Journalist who attended the roundtable expressed happiness about the event citing that he was able to interact with many journalists who worked in different radio stations in the state especially those he did not know before.
“I have a message to the citizens of Western Equatoria State. Let us love and listen to radio. Let us love to educate ourselves through the radio. This is because, radio is the only means of communication that can reach far distance, and my message to union of journalists is for the next tour it should be big so that we include other counties, and the leadership of the union in Western Equatoria the president and all the colleagues please lets spread the message to other counties of the state” Said Sabri