18 Producers of the Children’s Broadcasters Network (CBN) from Freetown, Makeni, Bo and Kenema were on Tuesday 18th and Wednesday 19th July, 2017 trained on interesting production and presentation skills for children at the CHASL hall, Kingharman Road in Freetown. The CBN was formed by the NCC in 2015 to promote child advocacy, strengthen collaboration among children in the media and to enhance child participation in the country and is made up of adult producers who work in the various radio and television stations and child broadcasters from different backgrounds.

The training of the Producers emanated from a mini project of the NCC supported by UNICEF on “Enhancing Children’s Engagement through the Radio” for a period of 6 months (June to November 2017) and is aimed at awareness raising and increasing the knowledge of duty bearers and children within the family, community and at national level on diverse children’s issues. It is also aimed at providing a platform for children to express their views on issues that affect their rights and welfare and also importantly to encourage and promote children’s participation through the use of the radio.

In his welcome statement Deputy Commissioner of the NCC Mr. Mohamed Fofie Konneh said he was pleased to see that the participants cut across all the regions of the country. He said the role of the NCC is to monitor the implementation of all the acts and agreements signed by the government on behalf of children in the country including the CRC and ACRWC, to monitor part III of the CRA, and to advise government on issues relating to children. In fulfilling these mandates he said the CBN plays a crucial role in working with children and enhancing their engagements on issues concerning them as they make available the opportunity for the children to be heard through their respective radio and television stations.
Mr. Konneh described the training as a step in strengthening the CBN currently supported by UNICEF for a period of 6 months starting from June to November, 2017. Key among the activities of the project he added are trainings for adult producers who guide the children in the production of the programmes to be followed by trainings for the child broadcasters. These he said will be followed by bi-weekly broadcasts of topical children’s issues for a period of five months (July to November, 2017) and provision of equipment such as digital audio recorders and stationeries to each radio station so as to make the work of conducting interviews out of the radio stations easier for the children.

He encouraged the participants to give their full attention to the training as it will refresh their memories on how to go about producing their respective quality programmes for children.

The UNICEF Representative, Mr. Issa Davies said the focus of the training will be on training children on producing their own programmes, adding that the adult producers will serve as the technical/professional guide to the children.
He stated that in performing the above mentioned tasks the participants need some form of orientation on working with these children and on child rights generally which will enable them to know the rules of working with children and to see how best to avoid conflicts in the homes and create a win-win situation for all to benefit especially the children.
Mr. Davies described the project as the nucleus of many to come but they (UNICEF) wants to see how best this can be implemented by the trainees. He said the training is geared towards closing the gaps and easing the tension on the producers in working with the children.

At the moment, the CBN is made up of 18 radio and television stations producing and broadcasting children’s programmes on a weekly basis (usually on weekends). These include SLBC Radio and Television, Star Radio, AYV Radio and TV, Radio Maria, Kid’s Radio Network on Skyy Radio, TUMAC Radio, Culture Radio, Believers’ Broadcasting Network (BBN), Voice of Islam, YACAN’s Pikin Veranda on Radio Democracy all in Freetown,
Radio Lion Mountain and VOPAD in Waterloo. Those in the regions include: KISS 104 FM and New song radio in Bo, SLBC and Eastern Radio in Kenema, Radio Mankneh and Amzas Radio in Makeni.