- Graduates should be ready to visit and cover fresh crime scenes, be caught in the middle of warring groups or disasters.
- The curriculum is set to empower students and staff to educate communities, especially those with low literacy levels, on the importance of embracing respect for people’s rights.
- Sensitivity to gender inequalities and portrayals should be a journalist’s priority so as to treat women and men in a fair and just manner.
The quest for sustainable solutions to the increased human rights violations globally has been stepped up with the introduction of the Human Rights Journalism Curriculum developed by the Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) organization.
The curriculum is designed and desired to equip journalism and communication students in universities with the requisite skills and knowledge to write or package human rights-related news stories/messages in a manner that is professional and ethical and broadens the search for solutions rather than fuelling trouble and breeding more human rights violations.
Need for HRJ curriculum
According to the JHR’s Regional Team Leader (Africa) Mustapha Dumbuya, there is a boundless need to make future generations of journalists and communicators conscious of human rights by institutionalizing human rights reporting.
“University lecturers should inform students yearning to practice journalism to brace themselves to work in environments that sometimes appear uncomfortable to the usual way of life.
Graduates should be ready to visit and cover fresh crime scenes, be caught in the middle of warring groups or disasters, and write, package or produce a news story that is fair, balanced and that pacifies as well as broadens search for solutions,” Dumbuya guided.
Training of Trainers
After developing the curriculum in partnership with like-minded organizations, academia and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), JHR has embarked on training of trainers.
These trainers mainly include faculty members drawn from an academic department that houses academic programs in Journalism, Media or Communication from a collaborating university.
Recently, the Maasai Mara University’s Department of Media, Film and Communication (MFC), School of Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences and Creative Industries, had its lecturers trained on how to implement the curriculum.
Dr. Dennis Ikachoi is the Chairperson of MFC Department. He was pleased to have led his team to take part in the training. He assured that learners will be more informed to tackle human rights assignments.
“Indeed, this area of human rights is critical in the development of any nation because if rights are violated, then even communication will be difficult; the media cannot play its role effectively and we cannot know about issues affecting our society,” said Dr. Ikachoi.
He added that the curriculum will empower students and staff to educate communities, especially those with low literacy levels, on the importance of embracing respect for people’s rights.
Welcoming HRJ Curriculum
Maasai Mara University Deputy Vice Chancellor Academic and Students Affairs Prof. Bulitia Godrick Mathews lauded JHR for developing the curriculum, terming it as a historic move in the teaching fraternity.
“From time immemorial, we have had little traces of directly incorporating and prioritization of human rights journalism content in Higher Education curricula hence we cannot underestimate the industriousness and creativity that JHR, we as Maasai Mara University, and other partners, have invested in developing this curriculum,” Prof. Bulitia remarked.
He also challenged media academicians to prioritize imparting top-notch investigative skills to journalism students to fill the increasing gap of exhaustive investigative news stories that inspire positive change and resolutions.
“‘Apparently, there is an upsurge of events and activities that upscale human rights violations in the world thus journalists and communication professionals must be trained and nurtured early enough to competently, factually and accurately report news and create content that champions everyone’s rights and freedoms,”‘ Prof. Bulitia observed.
His thoughts have been backed up by the Dean School of Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences and Creative Industries Prof. Bernard Kodak.
“I am confident that the trained faculty members will harness this opportunity to enhance our academic programs and thus ensure we offer quality teaching and learning,” Prof. Kodak recognized.
HRJ for postgraduate, research
Both Maasai Mara University and JHR are on the same wavelength, that the curriculum should be advanced to meet the authority of postgraduate academic programs thus avoiding its current limitation to undergraduate students only.
Prof. Bulitia guaranteed that this will be done before the end of 2023/2024 Academic Year.
“As a University, we would like to work on upgrading this curriculum to meet postgraduate threshold so that as we churn out undergraduate media and communication professionals, we also provide room for further and deeper studies in this new area of interest,” Prof. Bulitia assured.
His views were welcomed by Dumbuya who praised the commitment.
“We expect Universities in Africa and beyond to identify various knowledge gaps and therefore publish research findings that will go a long way in enhancing Human Rights Journalism.
We implore on them to ensure that Human Rights Journalism features prominently among the key research themes and sub-themes during their International Research Conferences, workshops and seminars,” Dumbuya urged.
Relevance of HRJ Curriculum
Apparently, the curriculum comes in handy at a period where a lot of activities happening in the world predispose humanity to increased violation of human rights.
A case in point is the war between Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Hamas and political instability coupled with insecurity in some countries.
According to the 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in Kenya, there are significant human rights issues in the country.
These issues include unlawful or arbitrary killings, arbitrary arrests and detentions, interference with privacy, acts of corruption and lack of investigation and accountability for violence against women and children.
JHR’s Program Coordinator in Kenya is Bernard Ogoi.
Ogoi cautions that if journalists are not well-trained and equipped to effectively report on human rights, they can also be violators.
“Journalists can be proactive by not waiting for abuses to occur but to be familiar with human rights approaches and insights in their storytelling and instructively report in a manner that audiences learn more about their rights so that they are able to agitate for their rights, recognize violations, and hold to account, those charged with the responsibility of ensuring that human rights are not violated,” Ogoi recommended.
Gender and Human Rights reporting
Mercy Njoroge is a Gender Media Trainer at JHR.
Her dream is to see Universities and Colleges equip journalism and communication students with knowledge and skills on how to ensure they are healthy, safe and protected both in online and physical space.
“Enable students to understand the situational and risk analysis metrics that will help them avoid harm or getting into situations that will put them in danger.
Let them know when to leave a scene or a place before things spin out of their control,” she guided.
Ms. Njoroge also emphasized that university dons contribute to a more gender-balanced and inclusive society, as we often notice missing voices in news stories associated with gender bias reporting.
“For every story that one is working on, they should know that it affects women differently as it affects men. One should make sure to avoid using frames that are used to cover men as well as women, contributing to the worsening of gender insensitivity in newsrooms.
Sensitivity to gender inequalities and portrayals should be a journalist’s priority so as to treat women and men in a fair and just manner,” Ms. Njoroge directed.
In a nutshell, human rights and gender reporting journalists have a big role in rooting out or alleviating human rights violations that are witnessed daily across the globe, by embracing proactive and not reactive approaches as they undertake their rights-based reporting assignments.
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The introduction of the Human Rights Journalism curriculum is a major milestone that mirrors five-year JHR’s toil, experts and stakeholder efforts, since the year 2019 when JHR commenced its activities in Kenya by implementing a project dubbed Voice for Women & Girls Rights.
