Author: CHRISTINA MSEJA
AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE youth various fields have been advised to build a culture of reading books to help them broaden their knowledge.
Speaking, Media Space Club Chief Executive Officer Vincentia Fuko said many young people did not have a culture of reading books especially young journalists who were supposed to read a lot to broaden their knowledge in their career performance.
She made the closing remarks of a book club project that initiated reading books and Media Space funded by the Embassy of the United States.
Ms Fuko added that they had decided to set up a book reading programme that involved young journalists and graduates from different universities.
“Our aim of launching this programme is to build the capacity of young journalists to analyse things in depth by reading people’s works through books,” she said.
She explained that the project started in June, 2019 and involved 15 young people of who 14 of them were awarded certificates from the Embassy of the United States of America in collaboration with Media Space.
The students were able to read 12 various books, including those on politics, empowering women, economics using comic and graphic novels.
“We have been reading books with them looking at the context of the relevant period, including the month of December as it is the beginning of World Aids Day. So, we were reading books that fitted this context and further built their understanding,” she explained.
According to Media Space Club, reading books will enable one to become proficient in the language. They encourage young journalists to be innovative through their work.
She mentioned challenges facing the media industry, including not being innovative and responsible in public information dissemination.
One of the participants in the project, Mr Venance Majula, expressed gratitude to Media Space and the US Embassy for being part of the project which enabled them to read books from various fields and be able to analyse them in the Tanzanian context.
“I call on my fellow young journalists to build a habit of reading books as it helps to gain knowledge related to our daily lives,” he said.
Media Space Tanzania’s approach includes storytelling, curation of women and youth voices, co-creation as well as partnership mind-cracking. They seek to inspire change and empower members of the public to embrace good governance.
