The name of the group is the Young Pacific Leaders (YPL) holding their first workshop in the Kingdom of Tonga last week 11-13 of September. The YPL program is the United States’ signature program to strengthen leadership development and networks of support in the Pacific. True to their name, the participants were young adults, from the Pacific; they were emerging leaders in their occupations.
More specifically, the regional workshop was on Media Literacy and Journalism, with six experts from the United States as instructors, and twenty seven participants from eleven Pacific nations. The participants included working journalists, communication officers from Government and NGOs; film makers and climate activists.
The three day workshop was opened by Deputy Prime Minister Hon Samiu Vaipulu, and on the first day focused on orientation, Pasifika perspectives, standards and solutions based journalism, factors influencing trust, and understanding our collective knowledge about climate storytelling in the Pacific. Day two focused on creating media for communication; and the final day on strategies for effectively distributing information and stories.
YPL issued a statement in the beginning that “we welcome these young leaders to Tonga to celebrate their work to address climate change and build youth capacity.” But the workshop gave so much more in terms of dealing not only with communication issues, but also appropriate tools shared on transformative storytelling and building networks.
Subjects dealt with included: communicating for a better world – telling the stories that change lives; strategic communications – making a plan, helping folks tell their stories; goals and audience; values-based messaging or why does all this matter?; tactics; a message triangle of a Core Message with the angles of Problem, Visualization, and Solution; tactics – they can be as creative as you need them to be; distribution through media – the pitches, press conferences and other ways to get the word out.
Small group sharing among instructors and participants was a dynamic that brought out so much wisdom, not only in terms of knowledge sharing but enlightenment into ways of doing things within the context of one’s culture and nation.
The instructors were led by Professor David Sattler of Western Washington University. Others included Professor Betsy O’Donovan, Jeff Shaw, Rhys Logan, and Barbara Kirchheimeir – all from Western Washington University. Laura Wides-Munoz from NBC, and based in Washington, DC was also a key instructor.
Kalafi Moala, guest instructor from Tonga, told TOT Newsdesk, this was one of the best workshops on Media Literacy and Journalism he has ever participated in. “It was rich in content, values-based instructions and practical. The participants from the region were also of such high quality: great communicators, great learners, and indeed young leaders,” he said.
The partnership between the US Embassy as sponsor, and the organizers of the workshop, Ohai Tonga, (under the leadership of Uili Lousi and Debra Allan) and Western Washington University proved effective in holding a very successful Pacific-based workshop.
