The First Merck Health Media Training, organized by Merck Foundation (Merck-Foundation.com), the philanthropic arm of Merck KGaA Germany has been held in Nairobi, Kenya,
The training was attended by over 200 journalists representing multimedia, print and online media from 17 African countries.
According to Dr. Rasha Kelej, CEO of Merck Foundation and President of Merck more than a Mother, the training was designed for journalists to enhance their understanding of infertility issues and to learn the best media practices to cover them.
“We focused on the international standards and media ethics for reporting sensitive issues like infertility in Africa.
“With the success of this program, we look forward to scale it up to Francophone African countries and Asian countries in 2018″ Kelej said .
The training program was a part of ‘Merck more than a Mother’ community awareness program and was organized to emphasize the important role that media plays to influence our society to create a cultural shift with the aim to break the stigma around infertility in general and infertile women in particular.
Facilitators at the training included top media professionals from Asian and African countries including India, Bangladesh, Mauritius, Kenya and South Africa and fertility experts from Africa.
During the training program, Merck Foundation announced the start of new hashtags #MenToo and #NoForInfertilityStigma to invite media from all over Africa to share its opinions and stories on social media about the topic.
Commenting on the training, Tom Mshindi, Editor-in-chief, Nation Media Group said “The media community has immensely benefitted from this training program and commended the efforts by Merck Foundation to bring together all African media and important stakeholders on one platform.
“It is a great initiative by Merck Foundation, it helped to educate media about infertility prevention and male infertility which very critical for Africa, since around 85% of infertility caused by untreated infectious diseases, hence prevention is very important. And also that how infertility is preventable in many cases” said Prof. Oladapo Ashiru, President of Africa Fertility Society, Nigeria.
Participating journalists were from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Gambia, Namibia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Ethiopia, Botswana, Liberia, Cameroon, Burundi, Malawi, Mauritius, Zambia and Sierra Leona.
The list of speakers included Dr. Rasha Kelej, CEO Merck Foundation; Pauline Wanjiku Kibui, first female Embryologist in Kenya; Dr. Koigi Kamau, Chairman, Kenya Fertility Society; Dr.Wanjiru Ndengwa, Gyn and IVF Specialists, Kenya; Dr. Anurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, BW Business World & Exchange4media, India; Tom Mshindi, Editor-in-Chief, Nation Media Group; Jean-Luc Emile, Chief Editor and news presenter, Radio Plus and Teleplus, Mauritius; Prof. Oladapo Ashiru, President of Africa Fertility Society, Nigeria; Dr. Tareq Muhammad Salahuddin, Editor of Health Section of The Daily Star, Bangladesh; Mathatha Tsedu, Health Journalist from South Africa and Renee Ngamau, Capital FM, Kenya.
