Joining forces for greater citizen-led control

The first workshop was held in July in the Guinean city of Kindia, and allowed the participants to learn more about their respective roles in society (media/CSOs), strengthen their ability to work as a two-person team, and master the fundamental aspects of citizen-led control. Their projects focus on health, public revenue management, or raising public awareness of environmental governance.

"The training has made us better equipped to search for, map and extract data." Saidou MAREGA, Guinée Développement et Environnement (GUIDRE) - Faranah

At the end of that workshop, it was agreed that the participants' investigative journalism skills needed to be strengthened, which led to a new training course being organised in Conakry from 18 to 30 September, in order to give the 13 participants the tools to collect reliable information and further enhance their respective citizen-led control projects.

In addition, an introductory workshop to data journalism took place in Conakry from 22 to 29 October, again with the aim of honing the participants' skills in the fields of investigative journalism and the citizen-led control of public initiatives. This workshop focused on the following topics:

• The benefits of open data and open data searches in Guinea
• The basics of data journalism
• How can it be applied to their projects, how can data be found, understood, analysed and visualised by using free, user-friendly online tools?
• What should be done when there is no open data available? Who should be contacted if there are any problems?
• How can data be visualised by someone who is not a graphic designer or computer programmer?
• How can data journalism be used for radio?
• How can I involve the members of the public who have a direct interest in the subject covered by my project?

“This training has taught me how to conduct effective Internet searches in order to collect information and safeguard the data useful to my project." Maimouna BANGOURA , Evasion TV - Conakry