To Enhance, Promote And Sustain Peace In Liberia
PHOTO: Mr. Taweh Johnson, head of the group
By Kelvin Gonlah, gonlahkelvin88@gmail.com
Campaigners Against Misinformation and Disinformation is expected to host a one-day symposium on Digital Media Literacy for 18 senior high schools In rural Montserrado County.
The Campaigners Against Misinformation and Disinformation is nonprofit organization and its objective is to enhance, promote and sustain peace in Liberia by teaching Liberian citizens how to verify information, and to make citizens responsible promoters of credible and reliable information.
Its forthcoming workshop will be held on the 24th of February under the theme: Finding and Consuming Credible and Reliable Digital Content and Communicating and Sharing Reliable and Relible Digital Content.
In an interview, the Executive Director of Misinformation and Disinformation, Taweh Johnson explained that they have already hosted a 2-day media literacy awareness campaign with over 50 students of the Communication and Media Studies Department at the University of Liberia to know how to verify information using 3 important steps.
He indicated that their next event is the Digital Media Literacy Workshop which will be held at the Orange Digital Center in Congo Town.
Eighteen senior high schools are expected to form part of the program. According to him, these institutions that will be in attendance are to learn two topics.
Mr. Johnson explained that the 3 steps associated with Misinformation and Disinformation he mentioned that every Individual should use these steps in getting reliable information, when people get information, they need to stop, reflect and verify adequate information before disseminating it to the public.
“Our first project was media literacy awareness with 6 schools in Rural Montserrado County. Confidence School System, Kingsley Lington Academy in Fendall, Montserrado Technical Institute, Lucy B. Gibson in Mount Barclay, New Jerusalem School, and Careysburg Public High School in Careysburg. We met with over 400 students from the six schools. The first project Media Literacy Awareness project with the six high schools in Rural Montserrado ran from October to December 2022,” Taweh Johnson asserted.
”This is a registered nonprofit organization, we got our registration in January this year. Before we got our registration, we did our first project. We have been to 6 schools in Rural Montserrado County, and we carried on a media literacy awareness. We met 500 students in these schools; they were thought about the three steps to gather information and it was remarkable,”, the head of the Campaign against Misinformation and Disinformation added.
The Executive Director of the group also disclosed that the project is a self-initiative, and that they are using their own resources to help promote peace in Liberia. Something which he said that it is their way of contributing back to society.
“We intend to establish media literacy in those schools we visited; and that media literacy club will work in collaboration with the already existing Press Club in their schools. The next thing we intend to do is to decentralize the organization across the 15th counties in Liberia. We intend to establish it in the Western region first which include Bomi, Grand Cape Mount, and, Gbapolu Counties,” he stated.
However, Mr. Johnson has appealed to those who get information from the Social Media to counter-check and verify before disseminating information to the public.