Gambian youth leaders poise to exercise caution in the online world

At the end of a three-day training on media and information literacy, Gambian youth leaders said they are now more cautious than ever in interacting with and consuming information from the media, particularly social media.

I am now more conscious about the Internet. I am aware that the Internet space is the biggest space for information consumption, particularly for us, youth leaders. We largely rely on the internet for the information we use in our youth advocacy work. But with this training, I know not all the information found on the Internet is factual.

Serreh Darboe

Serreh is the operational manager of Youth Empowerment Africa (YEPAfrica), a national youth organisation in The Gambia. She is one of the youth 40 youth leaders that participated in the three days training which was organised by UNESCO through its Peacebuilding Fund-funded project in The Gambia.

Held from 14th to 16th June at a hotel in Kololi, 15km from Gambia's capital, Banjul, the training focused on themes such as: understanding media and information literacy and its relevance to democracy and good governance; functions of media and other information providers; understanding the news, media and information ethics, and the relationship between journalism and society.

Verification and fact-checking; how to analyse the medium and the message; examining sponsored and unsponsored media messages and their goals; and the nature and characteristics of traditional and new media were also key components of the training workshop.

Many people spread fake news on the internet for different reasons, so we need to be careful as youth on how we consume information from the internet.But the good thing is that we are trained and exposed to how to confirm the accuracy of certain information we have doubt in. We were taught the tools and the processes of information verification. So generally, for me I learned how to use the media wisely.

Serreh Darboe

Life skills

Another participant, Fatim Janha, a member of the Regional Youth Committee of Kanifing Municipality, also harped on the importance of MIL training in a digital world.

"Media and information literacy is a skill we need in life nowadays because we have so much information coming from everywhere so we should be able to differentiate fake from real ones. I will use this knowledge in my daily use of the media," Fatim affirmed, adding that the training has also helped her in understanding better the functions of the media.

Omar Bah of the National Youth Council reiterated the timeliness and importance of the training as all "the presentations were apt considering how information can be distorted to cause harm".

Youth leaders across the country are sources of information for other youth and these youth leaders themselves rely on information from online sources. But this training has equipped us, youth leaders, with the requisite knowledge and skills of media literacy for public good.

Omar Bah

Omar Bah, National Youth Council © UNESCO

All the participants expressed commitment to share the knowledge with other members of their respective youth organisations.

In such a chaotic information overloaded world, such trainings are necessary for everyone since everyone has the potential to become content creators.

Yero Bah, youth advocate and journalist.

MIL, not censorship, is the solution

UN Peace and Development Advisor to The Gambia, Patrick McCarthy, said media and information literacy is globally recognised as an educational area that needs to be promoted, particularly when aiming at building understanding between individuals from different religious and cultural backgrounds.

If the recent presidential and parliamentary election is anything to go by, social media - especially Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp - have also become a fertile space for the expression and propagation of hate, intolerance, and extremism.

Despite this ugly phenomenon, it is my fervent belief that censoring social media or traditional media is potentially harmful and will not effectively curtail the spread of media messages appealing to youth on the basis of hate or violent extremist narratives.

Developing media and information literacy skills is a better and more sustainable long-term solution. Teaching young people to listen and read without engaging in hate speech, despite provocations, is a crucial element of Media and Information Literacy.

Patrick McCarthy, UN Peace and Development Advisor to The Gambia

Lead trainer, Caroline Anipah, said media and information literacy is a prerequisite for democratic participation and preservation of freedom of expression. It is the only solution to the pernicious effect of information disorder; it empowers the average person to discern information disorder.

The three-day training was organised under UNESCO's component of the Peace Building Fund project entitled 'Young Women and Men as Stakeholders in Ensuring Peaceful Democratic Processes and Advocates for the Prevention of Violence and Hate Speech'

The two-year project is being implemented by a consortium of UNESCO, UNDP, and UNFPA in partnership with local implementing partners. It seeks to address the institutional barriers for young people, strengthen youth capacity for engagement and participation in governance and leadership, and address hate speech, and counter fake news and misinformation of young people through media and local community structures.

The training on media and information literacy was expected to adequately equip the youth with an acceptable degree of skills to evaluate, understand and criticize media content to know what is fake from real and be able to differentiate between paid media propaganda and news content.