(By Ernesto Cooke) – Journalists from across the Caribbean are attending a two-day workshop in Belize City, Belize.
The Japan-Caribbean Climate Change Partnership (J-CCCP) is hosting the regional training seminar entitled Climate Change Capacity Building for Media Practitioners.
The training is geared towards enabling media practitioners to learn and share best practices on climate change issues including climate change science, economics and policy with integrated gender and youth considerations as well as the roles of media in communicating on climate change and public access to information.
A survey conducted recently in SVG on Climate Change showed respondents demonstrated a limited understanding of what was causing climate change.
It also became apparent that some respondents understand those issues at the community level that are contributing towards greenhouse gas emission.
However, there appears to be a lack of comprehensive understanding of the major contributing factors at the global and national level.
Facilitators noted that their aim is to encourage media participants to make a connection between natural disasters and climate change so that they can accurately report on such events in their respective countries.
Further to this, facilitators also expect as an outcome of the training Practitioners would also be able to place climate change in the context of the socio-economic, political and of course, environmental issues facing Small Island Developing Stated (SIDS) in the Caribbean.
Four media houses are being represented at the workshop, News784, API, News Newspaper and Searchlight.
The workshop is being held over a two day period at the Ramada Princess Hotel in Belize City.
