Participants hails CSME Media Workshop a success

Media personnel and spokespersons in Dominica who attended a three day CSME Media Workshop at the Windsor Park Stadium’s conference room has hailed the workshop as beneficial and informative.

The reporters and spokespersons, who participated in the workshop held between 23 & 25 February 2015, say they are better informed on the five regimes which give meaning to CARICOM and the CARICOM Single Market (CSM).

“As a media manager, I take away so much information from this workshop,” Tarnia Green, media manager at Digicel Play told Dominica Vibes.

“I feel empowered and privileged to be in a position to go back to my individual media house and set the agenda with my news team as to our responsibility and role in disseminating information on CSME,” Ms Green continued.

She added that “too often, the ordinary man on the street hears information about CARICOM and CSME but does not fully understand the technical terms used in everyday reporting”.

“It is our role as media persons to break down that information and present it in a palatable form,” Mr Green indicated.

Dr. Lucia John, who studied business journalism and participated in the workshop, said although she is not yet a media practitioner, she now sees greater possibility to expand her profession.

“I see this for us as a role to educate the people on what CSME really means for us, what is the Treaty of Basseterre, what is the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, when people understand that they will be more willing to take part in it,” Dr John said.
Meanwhile, facilitator of the workshop Barbara Jacob Smalls described the workshop as very gratifying.

“I got a sense in Dominica that there is an interest in getting information and getting knowledge, I get a sense that there is an openness to acknowledge that there is much more that can be done and perhaps was not done,” Mrs Small, who is a communications specialist and CSME consultant, said.

Mrs Small reported success in getting the media to understand that they a have a critical role to play in national development.

“The media appreciates that with the CSME itself the issues that have to do with democracy and democratic process, that they have a role to play in facilitating and giving access to all the voices and not just the technocrats, policy makers and the government,” Mrs Small said.