At leadership workshop: Young Presbyterian leaders trained on newswriting, parade theory.

The workshop was presided over by the Mezam South Presbytery Secretary, Rev Achah Gerald. 

The workshop had as objective to empower Young Presbyterian leaders of the Presbytery to be exemplary in the church and in the society.

A highpoint of the workshop was a session on newswriting. It was coordinated by journalist of Cameroon Broadcasting Service, CBS Bamenda, Chi Faizette.

The CBS journalist enlightened the participants on the process of writing good news stories. She also schooled them on the concept of five 5Ws and 1H in story writing.

Through a practical session, Chi took the participants through the various stages involved in the newswriting process. 

She mentioned the collection and treatment of news items, crosschecking of information, conducting of interviews to beef up stories among others. 

Chi encouraged participants to be of good conduct, adopt a reading culture so as to be current with news stories and learn best writing styles. 

“We should make reading a habit in order to learn how to write a good sentence,” she stated. 

Chi urged participants to desists from practice of reading only the front pages of newspapers. Reading the full stories, she insisted, would help build their vocabulary and mastery of the art. 

“All the journalists and other good writers you see today did not fall from the sky. They all started from small workshops like this; learning and building themselves,” Chi told the participants, while encouraging them to always put to practice what they have learned. 

Training of great help to YP leaders 

The YP Public Relations Officer for Mezam South Presbytery, Loveline Mambo, said the training will be of great help to the youth leaders to better lead the children in Christ. 

“…the capacity building workshop has been a success. So far, the program is moving on well and the participants are doing their best…,” Mambo said. 

Mambo said they did their utmost to overcome challenges to ensure training unfolded successfully. 

“…dealing with youths is not easy…they are always noisy and always complain. But with all of this, we can still say everything is going on smoothly because they seem so eager to learn all what they have come to learn and take it back to their various congregations to inspire the other youths,” Mambo said. 

Participants salute quality of training 

Participants at the workshop have hailed the quality of the training and knowledge acquired, noting it will go a long way to better their skills

Youth leader from PC Aziri, Zephaniah, said “the course is going well and the facilitators are good”.

“…the topics which the organisers have put in place for us are very enriching and we promise to make YP Mezam South a better place for the PCC,” Zephaniah said. 

Another youth leader from PC Ngomgham, said the skills acquired will help her to be a better youth leader “because if you lead in a wrong way, it will spoil the children and the church”. 

Participants at the training which wrapped up yesterday pledged to transfer the knowledge acquired to other youth in the society. 

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue N0:3172 of Thursday July 18, 2024