LightRay Media Capacity Training 2020

In 2020, LightRay Media Projects founded by Ejiro Umukoro focused on helping students across more than 10 universities in Nigeria to develop their Mental Resilience, Understanding Ethics of Journalism, The Power of Your Voice in Writing, Public Speaking, Storytelling, reportage and editorial; Longform Journalism vs Creative Writing – Two Sides of the Same Coin in an Evolving Media, Youth Relevance in the Media, Choosing the Right Career Path and Climb into the Media Ecosystem, Finding Your Creative Hustle, How to Report on Violence Against Protests when Protest Go Haywire, World Youth Skills Day at UN 75t hAnniversary, including Gaining Trust for the Media in the Fake News Era. For each of these projects, mentees wereaskedtowritetheirreportsonthe impact of these trainings as well as send in their story reports for publication consideration. So far over 12 stories have been submitted and published by and through LightRay Media, sunreporters.com and Media Career Development Network who gave a token to the best three well- written pieces on how much they have learnt from these sessions.

In 2021, LightRay Media Projects will focus on building more partnerships across the media and literary

ecosystem, help more journalists become authors as an optional means of income generation, developing your own unique style of writing, how to be an outstanding speaker (most sought after and highly paid), creating powerful radio and podcast, the art of being an outstanding presenter, mentor and so much more. 2021 is the year of more literary focus, promotion of reading culture, publication of more books by Nigerian journos, presenters and other literary minds, with special focus on capturing younger adolescents to help them start early in pursuing a career in radio, TV, print, podcasting, and introduction into audio books with the book titled Distortion and Daughters Who Walk This Path.

In particular, LightRay Media was created because there was a dearth in skills expertise, lack of mentoring, lack of support system for young journos whether at the university levels or when growing up. There is a serious gap when young people from

very early on do not understand that the creative industry, which includes advertising, journalism, broadcasting are actually intertwined and act as a whole. Mass communication as a body of study encompasses so much more. It is a great business platform, a great employer of labour, provides people a means to express themselves and an opportunity to thrive in a world where science has been so dominant that people just think anything that has to do with arts is merely entertainment, namely music and may be comedy, which by the way are thriving in their own sphere in Nigeria. We want a situation where the literary part of the arts, the journalistic and broadcast aspects of the arts also take their rightful place where every generation of young people can aspire to become a creative writer, journalist, broadcaster and know that they can succeed, thrive, excel, make money and create impact and be referenced as role models, mentors and people who are change makers.