What We Discussed With Colleagues At The Kofi Annan Foundation
Nairobi, 20th February, 2020.
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Kofi Annan and The Youth Café officials after the meeting.
On 20th February 2020, as part of efforts to promote media & information literacy among youth, The Youth Café held a brief consultation meeting with Kofi Annan Foundation at its offices on Pinetree Plaza, Nairobi-Kenya.
The purpose of the engagement was to denote the nexus between the visions trajectories of the two organizations, especially in media. Both organizations believe in the inescapable role of the media in election periods, its observance of human rights, upholding of rule of law and good governance; as well as how the media compliments democracy. But media might also have a derogatory role, if not well harnessed to a good use.
KAF’s Senior Political Advisor, Sebastian F. Brack, particularly mentioned the ‘weaponization’ of social media as an instance in which the media could be used to unleash violence, especially during elections periods, rather than being routine communication platforms.
Through their digital literacy and preparedness program, the Kofi Annan Foundation works towards improving electoral integrity, predominantly within individual countries where the risks of fraught, and the possibly violent elections are high. The Foundation recognizes elections and democracy as conflict points, and thus, the Foundation has resorted to continued efforts to combat violent extremism.
KAF’s Head of Partnerships, Michaelene Kinnersley, stressed that miscommunication, and enhancement of the environmental ecosystem for elections, are main areas in which the media has been used to undermine the credibility of election processes. Propagation of media literacy requires cooperation between different concerned stakeholders, social media, and government departments.
As Kinnersley notes:
There is a fair romantic technical literacy that could be built among certain departments, issues like what the likes of Microsoft, Google, and Facebook can, or can’t do, to protect the environment.
We are now subject to media messages, more than at any time in history. It has become increasingly difficult to distinguish credible news sources from unreliable ones; unlike back in the days, when one clearly had a particular source of information, as explicitly noted by Kinnersley.
Joint photo after the meeting.
The Kofi Annan Foundation and The Youth Café believe that the majority of the digital media consumers are youth. In line with this, The Youth Café has organized a Media Literacy Forum on the 12th of March, 2020, that seeks to influence young people to be vigilant media creators and consumers. Take a minute to register for the Media Literacy Forum, only a few spaces left.
Media literacy will build an understanding of the role of the media in society, as well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens in a democracy. Those promoting the importance of media literacy acknowledge the pervasive nature of media in our lives, and the fact that media is a part of modern culture
Therefore, the emphasis is often not placed on protecting or secluding young people from media and its messages, but instead on recognizing the role of the mass media and its subsequent influence, while encouraging people to become competent, critical, and literate in all media forms.
For citizens to be able to effectively participate in the media, and confidently curate their media consumption, the skills to discern between credible and bogus media message need to become a second nature.
The Youth Café also showed a short video about its work and presented their idea of a Leadership Center, which aims to mobilize $2 million for a youth leadership and training facility in Kenya. This center would serve as a hub to inspire future leaders to advance social change through leadership and resilience training, certificate courses, research internships, and outreach programmes. The leadership center facility is envisioned in partnership with strategic stakeholders.
The closed-door educative meet-up ended after about an hour and a half- we did indeed define and redefine our ideas of digital and media literacy. We look forward to our journey together.
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About The Author
Martin Wang is an Associate Member of the Youth Café, and a graduate student at Daystar University pursuing Diplomacy, development and security studies.
Email: martinwang@theyouthcafe.com
Tel: +25470558688