DW Akademie, Deutsche Welle’s international center for media development, media consulting and journalism training, is organizing in cooperation with UNESCO, a “Train-the-Trainer Course” for 12 young lecturers from eight African journalism education institutions. The course is taking place now in East London, South Africa and will run until January 27, and is being hosted by Walter Sisulu University.

Journalism Educators from Namibia, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe will share their experiences of teaching journalism with a focus on community media. The aim is for training methods to become more interactive, participative and practice-oriented, thus allowing students to apply newly acquired skills and knowledge directly. The group will also concentrate on community media, which can play an important role in development in Africa.

This training is the first of three courses due to take place in Africa within the framework of a UNESCO/DW Akademie joint initiative to strengthen 20 selected African universities´ capacities to offer high quality journalism education programs for aspiring and working journalists. DW Akademie has put a focus on Africa for 2012.

DW Akademie has been conducting a variety of media development projects to reinforce free and independent media, particularly in developing and transition countries since 1965. Their team of experts advise broadcasting executives, train young, up-and-coming journalists and provide professional coaching to media engineers. Every year around 3,000 individuals take part in DW Akadmie’s training and workshop programs.