Twitter and Amref Health Africa, a leading Nairobi-based health development organization, have announced their continued collaboration to provide best practices for health reporting skills and capacity-building training.
This follows the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and growing concern about recently reported cases of monkeypox across the continent.
Since its launch in 2020, Amref Health Africa’s media scholarship program, in collaboration with Amref International University and Twitter, has awarded scholarships to high-achieving African journalists to pursue Health Communication and Journalism courses.
The Amref-Twitter partnership, which was renewed in 2022, aims to improve the knowledge, skills, and competencies of journalists, public relations professionals, and health managers in all aspects of health reporting.
In a statement, Elizabeth Ntonjira, Global Communication Director at Amref said, “The role of media in enhancing public health information is indisputable. Media advocacy for health ensures that the right information gets to the people in order to make informed decisions and also, the right policies are enacted and implemented to achieve a country’s health goals. Media practitioners must, therefore, have the right skills and capacity to contribute to improving the health of populations effectively and that’s the goal of this course. This partnership with Twitter is critical in ensuring that media practitioners are knowledgeable, equipped and empowered to tackle health related stories that impact communities.”
Twitter’s financial contribution has enabled over 40 journalists and health communication professionals to attend the course and improve their health reporting skills since 2020.
“We have always prioritised using the positive power of Twitter to strengthen our communities by surfacing credible, authoritative information. Journalism is core to our service and we have a deep and enduring responsibility to protect that work. We are therefore committed to supporting Amref in their efforts towards ensuring ethical health reporting, in order to help people find reliable information both online and offline”, said Emmanuel Lubanzadio, Head of Public Policy for Sub-Saharan Africa.
The first cohort of the scholarship program took place between November 9 and December 4, 2020, with 15 participants completing the course successfully.
Tuition for the second cohort took place between August 9 and September 3, 2021, with another 25 candidates enrolled.
The course is expected to be completed by 10 participants in 2022.
