An international non-governmental organization called Christian Aid in collaboration with Coperazione International funded by the European Union has trained journalists in Sokoto State on the importance of the Geographical Information System (GIS) in their reportage.
The facilitator, Engineer Omobhude Kingsley, in his remarks, highlighted some of the importance of GIS in reporting issues related to disaster reduction and social safety.
He called on journalists in the state to ensure proper usage of GIS in order to bring accurate reportage of events as part of a measure to create more awareness of disasters in different areas, especially among the local communities.
“The importance of GIS cannot be overemphasised in our reportage, it will definitely give us more accurate data which will in the end make the report acceptable to our readers.
“Issue of disaster should be taken with utmost importance as, we need to know that through our reportage, we will create more awareness to the general public.”
Also speaking, the Monitoring Evaluation Accountability Manager of the agency, Talatu Aliyu, said Christian Aid embarked on the training so as to create more avenues for journalists in the state to know more about disaster reportage.
She called on journalists who participated in the two-day training to ensure that they put the knowledge learned in the training into possible use so as to benefit their different communities.
She highlighted some of the issues causing disaster which include flooding, erosion, and fire outbreak among many others.