HCD: Edo demands that journalists do quality reporting

The Edo State Human Capital Development Programme (HCD) on Friday tasked media with providing accurate coverage of the three programmatic areas so that beneficiaries may comprehend the advantages of the initiative.

The HCD Programme is a National Economic Council (NEC) initiative, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), with its Core Working Groups focusing on the three theme areas of health and nutrition, education, and labour force participation.

Mr. Olusoji Adeniyi, the regional consultant for South South HCD, made the keynote address during a two-day media engagement and HCD reporting for media agencies event held in Benin, the capital of Edo.

Speaking on the subject of “Accelerating HCD base in Nigeria,” Adeniyi claimed that the three HCD thematic areas had received little coverage, and that stakeholders and communities were unaware of the program’s advantages.

He pointed out that more information about what the government was doing through the HCD needed to be shared in the media in order to help communities understand the value of education and other programmatic areas.

“The training aims to increase the media agency’ capacity while also educating journalists about the HCD’s components and preventing misunderstandings.

“The purpose of the workshop is to inform you that HCD is a life cycle of a kid that starts in the womb and includes nursing, caring the child, and the child’s educational status.

“It includes the chance for the kid to develop employable abilities through what they learn. They were exposed to teenagers and young adults who would help the nation’s employment force during that time.

A youngster who is wandering around during school hours is a child who is likely to drop out of school and has to be corrected and brought back to school, thus the media needs to engage the communities in order to let them know.

“We want people to realise that a child’s ability to completely develop and contribute to the economy of the country begins when the child is still inside the mother.

“It covers when the child is born in a facility that has the right kind of birth attendants so that we do not loose the child and mother to infant and maternal mortality,” the man stated.

He claimed, “Bronze casting has become obsolete in Edo, and the media has to educate the public on the need to resuscitate it because it helped to establish Edo as a global cultural centre.

However, Adeniyi said that 260 journalists have so far received HCD project training in the south south zone.

Gov. Godwin Obaseki had invested in HCD and was working with its three theme areas, according to Mrs. Violet Obiokoro, the Edo HCD Focal Person and Managing Director of Edo Skills Development Agency (Edojobs), who also spoke.

Obiokoro, however, bemoaned the fact that all of the advancements in the state’s theme areas that have been made thus far by the governor had gone unreported.

“The governor has done a lot in these areas, but they are under reported and as a result, people are not aware of what government is doing,” Obiokoro claimed.

“I want to appeal to you all to start looking into these areas and help us report what government is doing,” she said.

It’s time we started reporting these activities and gathering data on our own rather than relying on others to do it for us.

To discuss the effects of HCD thematic areas in the state, a plenary meeting was convened with representatives from the ministries of Health, Education, and EdoJobs. (NAN)