Daystar University to unveil degree on environmental journalism

J.M OKINDA, from Sagam Village in western Kenya, sent this story and asked me to post it for him. He is participating in the program.

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Photo: Vice Chancellor of Daystar University Professor Godfrey Ngure addressing trainees at the official launch of a workshop on environmental journalism and communication in Nairobi.


Daystar University to unveil degree on environmental journalism


By JOHN OKINDA

Daystar University will soon launch an undergraduate program on environmental journalism.

Addressing a group of trainees on 28th August 2005 at the opening of a workshop on environmental journalism and communication at Gracia Guest House in Nairobi's Hurligham area, the Vice Chancellor Professor Godfrey Nguru said the University's academic community was in the process of developing a training curriculum for the proposed degree program on environmental journalism.

The university currently offers an undergraduate regular program on Bachelor of Arts Communication (print and electronic media) at its Athi River Campus, 45km East of Nairobi.

Daystar, which is a Christian interdenominational university and whose programs are designed to integrate professional training and Christian faith has teamed up with the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) to offer certificate courses on environmental journalism and communication to a wide range of environmentalists, journalists, community workers, social workers and other professions.

The training workshops, which were incepted in 2003 and by now trained more than 150 people hopes to empower local journalists and environmentalists to be able to increase the content of environment in the local media. “The training workshops are meant to develop a critical mass of journalists who can write captivating stories about the environment” said Professor Nguru.

He singled out KTN’s Eco-Journal television feature documentary, as one local production on environment of it’s kind. He urged journalists to continue ‘blowing the whistle’ whenever they saw any destruction being meted onto the environment. He said Kenyans were ashamed of their city because of the level of degradation, in form of pollution, which has reached alarming proportions.

Professor Nguru also decried the rate at which the forest cover in Kenya has decimated to less than 2 percent, a level that is far way below the global standards. “We now have to import timber for telephone and electricity lines from South Africa” he said.

The workshop that was organized by the Communication Department of Daystar University runs till the 10th September 2005 with a climax being a graduation dinner for the trainees and presentation of various awards and certificates.

According to Professor Faith Nguru, the country director of Sida-Makerere Regional Training on Environmental and Communication, Kenya chapter, the trainings are offered in four other regional institutions and universities in East Africa and parts of West Africa. These institutions include Makerere University in Uganda, Saint Augustine Sauti University in Mwanza Tanzania, Burundi Press House in Burundi and the National University of Rwanda in Kigali Rwanda.

She added that the program also offers a post-graduate diploma on environmental journalism for one year at Makerere University.