East African Universities Exchange Program for journalism educators was held in Addis Ababa and Hawassa/Ethiopia from 5 – 9 June 2023. The first annual meeting was held in Kigali/Rwanda 5 – 11 November 2023. This program is organized and sponsored by International Media Support (IMS) and FOJO Media Institute.
The program aims to facilitate regional collaboration among journalism educators from different universities across East Africa.
Participants were four journalism universities from Rwanda, were four journalism universities from Ethiopia, and Somali National University.
Several activities were conducted, including city tours, visits to media houses, and panel discussions on journalism education in Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Somalia. Four lecturers from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Somali National University participated in the training. SNU participants were Abdulkadir Mohamed Diesow, Omar Abdi Mohamed, Hassan Sheikh Omar, and Farah Omar Nur.
The program also included workshops on curricula development, joint MoUs, exchange of guest lecturers, digital/online teaching, and future collaborative courses/programs.
Somali National University raised several initiatives, including hosting the upcoming third annual East African Universities Exchange Program and entering MoUs with Addis Ababa University and Jimma University for postgraduate studies (MA and PhD) degree programs.
The program was a successful and demonstrated the importance of regional collaboration in journalism education.