Above 50 percent socio-economic growth guaranteed through mentoring.

“I’ve always believed that when one generation hands over the baton to the next generation, continuity of purpose and values are sustained then embedded.” says ‘Lady E’ Ejiro Umukoro on Sunday at a social media event. I couldn’t agree more.

There is no gainsaying that development of self is key in recent times. The need for it has flooded the social-economic and business stream. And with the new normal, it is more necessary as new skills need to be learned, old ones have to be developed. Even the way information and activity are spread through the media have been redefined. This I learnt during the media training and mentoring programme organised by LightRay Media on whatsapp.

This particular training was an open call  to collaborate and mentor passionate and pro active individuals in journalism keen on such training. And they responded. In the group are people from diverse universities across Nigerian states, practicing journalists, passionate writers and other enthusiasts. Also part of the training  are a few from diaspora, specifically East Africa.

The training which has been on for five weeks is a virtual training tailor-made to each mentees philosophy and capacities. LightRay Media training has covered topics on the ethics of Journalism, including focus on the media ecosystem has affected  the participants in a transforming way, inspiring people to write every day and explore the different types of journalism with assurance that these stories from passionate individuals will be published.

Behind the media training is a passionate and engaging Mentor and  instructor, a multi award Broadcast Specialist, award wining Investigative Journalist who also doubles as General Manager MEGA 89.1 FM, Ejiro Umukoro fondly called Lady E.

Umukoro during one of the training session submits that, “To excel in the media, it means you have to understand and grasp the connectedness of the media ecosystem and how you can leverage them.”

            According to her, the Media Ecosystem cuts across Content Creation Research skills, Media Consultancy, Media Mentorship,Media Training,  Online Media Promotions,  Public Relations Firm, Advertising Firm,  Publishing Book Authorship, Data Journalism and much more. 

The training sheds light on the convergence between publishing, sharing, localisation, buying, networking and playing, highlighting recent media types that has substituted previous ones in as at this new decade. In this training, emphasis was placed on the media ecosystem. It exposes a smooth way to decide on  the right type of journalism that suites ones capacities and how to leverage it in the media ecosystem .  

 LightRay Media with its powerful tagline ‘Ignite The Mind’ would not stop at mentoring. And this forum would serve and create platforms for voices of upcoming journalists to be heard.  For those who have written stories, they are encouraged  to send them to be  published. Those who did have had theirs  amplified and shared on different platforms. There is also an offer for some to be interviewed on MEGA 89.1 FM  to share some of their reports and discuss how their stories are making impact.

  Mentees have  been given various  opportunities too  to work for MEGA FM radio station for unpaid internship program to get important skill(s) is also presented during the training. 

LightRay Media also promised to produce programs that would allow voices of student journos to be heard on radio doing a lot of stuff.  There are at least 2 programmes  where the voices of young journo  will be heard beyond school their individual schools:Campus Scoop and  Young Journos Hangout.   

As a result of this training, mentees would have everything it takes to be assets to the journalism profession I daresay.