Ready for action

Michelline Nawatises
Leandrea Louw

My Zone recently hosted a training sessions for the coastal editorial teams to refine their skills.

Thirteen school in the Erongo region contribute to the a My Zone school newspaper project. Leandrea Louw, a project co-ordinator at My Zone, presented training sessions for all 13 schools.

“It is important for learner of the different editorial teams to understand the mechanics of their school newspaper. This is more than words on paper. These are their stories and their newspaper. This platform is theirs to tell their stories,” said Louw.

Learners were briefed on the layout of the My Zone newspaper and what is needed to create the newspaper. “The idea is that the students understand exactly what is expected of them as editorial teams,” she explained.

Penny Hambako, the editor of the SSS school newspaper, enjoyed the session. “I enjoyed the training, it was very informative and helped me to understand my role as editor of the SSS Times,” she said.

Members of the SSS media team shared the afternoon with members of the Coastal High School and Westside High School editorial teams.

The My Zone school newspaper project started in 2015 and tasks learners with compiling an 8 page newspaper regarding their school and its recent events.

The My Zone school newspaper forms part of the Namibia Media Holdings (NMH) conglomerate, which produces a multitude of other newspapers and has recently expanded into other media.

Louw believes that the project is obtaining its objective of cultivating a passion for the media industry among the youth. “Something that stood out to me during the training sessions is that there is a lot more kids that want to study journalism and media after school. Somewhere we’re doing something right with this project,” told Louw.