FEATURED: MKU Rwanda forges ties, equips studios to enhance media training

Mount Kenya University Rwanda (MKUR) is participating in two collaborative media projects that seek to promote responsible and objective journalism. This is after the university struck partnerships with two international organisations early this year. MKUR is collaborating with Sweden’s FOJO Media Institute, Pax-Press, the Rwanda Government, the Swedish Embassy and Swiss Development and Cooperation to raise journalism training standards in the country. The project, dubbed Rwanda Media Development Partnership for Universities, kicked off mid this month and will run up to 2026. The programme manager, Anki Wood, said the Rwanda Media Development Partnership for Universities will support MKUR’s journalism department to enhance practical journalism skills among media students and increase their awareness of gender issues. It will also create closer ties with Rwandan Media and the international journalism community, she added. “Forging international partnership to improve the quality of training is one of the university objectives,” said the MKUR vice-chancellor, Prof Edwin Odhuno during a meeting with the Rwanda Media Programme team to discuss the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). “The programme aims to produce creative and entrepreneurial journalists, prepare students with desirable competencies to take over mentorship roles for fellow students or as trainers/teachers and offer extra internships and study tours that will help bridge the classroom-industry needs gap,” said the University Coordinator with the Rwanda Media Programme, Assoumani Ntakirutimana. The university is also partnering with Rwanda’s GAERG, and Renewed Memory, an Israeli organisation, to document memories of the 1994 genocide and teach future generations to avoid sliding into a similar situation. GAERG is an abbreviation of the Rwandan Alumni of Genocide Survivor Students’ Association. Renewed Memory Rwanda in partnership with MKUR is producing short films using mobile devices to preserve genocide memories. Pini Snir, the founder and leader of the Renewed Memory project, says he started the project to increase remembrance, and enhance awareness the implications of crimes against humanity and racism among the youth in different places of the world. Renewed Memory is a voluntary organization that creates an opportunity for teens to prepare and share via social networks, video content relating to crimes against humanity and racism that happened to their people. The programme trains students on scripting, filming, and editing using new media technology. The videos produced by the team were launched in Rwanda in early June in the presence of Israel Ambassador Dr Ron Adams. In Israel, these videos will be launched on November 25 at a film festival. Following the partnerships, MKUR’s Mass Media department has been receiving guest lecturers from media. These professionals share practical knowledge with the university’s mass media students. Immaculee Mukayazire, the owner of Ubumwe.com and an alumnus of the MKUR department of Mass Media, gave a talk to online journalism students. She said this kind of training will eliminate the challenges fresh graduate face upon joining media firms. Apart from forging working relationships, the department boasts modern equipment, including studios, that are ideal for training mass media students. Additionally, it has strengthened its ties with the sister organization Royal FM, for the practical training and internship of students. MKUR is one of the leading institutions of higher learning in the country offering quality training in the field of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2010. Most of its graduates have been absorbed in the job market or are in private business.

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FEATURED: MKU Rwanda forges ties, equips studios to enhance media training