Over 20 Journalists attend training on Transitional Justice reporting

By Benjamin Takpiny & Jennifer James

At least 25 journalists have attended training on transitional justice reporting to promote sensitive storytelling that supports community healing.

The one-day workshop organized by Advance Youth Radio with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), aims to empower journalists to promote victim-centered reporting and foster public understanding of transitional justice.

Speaking on Friday during the opening session, Mawa Nimaya Joseph, the Executive Director of Advance Youth Radio, said the training is very important to journalists because it is to sensitize them  on the recently passed Commission for Truth, Reconciliation, and Healing Act, 2024 (CTRH), and the Compensation and Reparation Authority Act, 2024 (CRA).

“We work on transitional justice issues, engaging media practitioners, engaging universities, engaging the local communities, mainly to raise a deeper awareness of transitional justice mechanisms. So as we all know that the two bills are being passed into law, I think it’s high time that we bring in the media fraternity to be on the front line, especially on reporting most of the key transitional justice matters,” said Nimaya.

Nimaya said that they hope to interact with journalists and learn from each other, and also enlighten journalists on the CRH and CRA laws, with the aim of also understanding how the condition of true reconciliation and healing works.

“I think most of us are probably familiar with transitional justice, but also if you are not familiar, it’s our hope that through this training, we will be able to deepen our understanding on transitional justice, so that we promote healing, we promote reconciliation and promote peace,” he said.

 Majak Daniel Kuany , Secretary General of the Union of Journalists of South Sudan (UJOSS), asked the participants  to focus on the training  because transitional justice mechanisms require journalists to pay more attention to them.

He said that the training is important because it will educate journalists in transitional justice.

“Please give us your attention and give us your good participation, because we are not coming here that we know more. As people always say, we need to learn from each other,” said Kuany.

“Learning is a two-way traffic, so you have a very important thing that we have also grabbed and also to share and at the end of the day, we say at least we have sensitized each other about transitional justice in South Sudan,” he added.

Chapter 5 of the 2018 revitalized peace agreement calls for the establishment of transitional justice and accountability mechanisms, with the aim of realizing reconciliation and reparation for victims of conflict since outbreak in December 2013.