AMECEA: “Let Us Increase SIGNIS Visibility In Our Region,” Bishop To Communication Coordinators
AMECEA Regional Social Communication Coordinators meeting in Lusaka Kampala
The AMECEA Social Communications Coordinators annual planning meeting for 2020 at Kapingila House, Lusaka, has ended with the members resolving to increase the visibility of SIGNIS in the region and to actively participate in the activities of the association.
The meeting was graced by the presence of Bishop Moses Hamungole who is chairman for Social Communications Department in Zambia Conferences of Catholic Bishops Conference (ZCCB) and former president of SIGNIS Africa.
On how to increase the visibility of SIGNIS in AMECEA region, Rt. Rev. Moses Hamungole who is the Ordinary for Monze Diocese in Zambia, said that what AMECEA needs now is to re-look at its membership and how actively involved the members are.
Currently, SIGNIS membership in AMECEA region is limited to national Social Communications Departments in the Bishops’ Conferences. However, according to SIGNIS Statutes which is in fact, a lay association, membership is divided into different categories including the national category such the national communications office and national associations of lay professionals such as journalists; and the international category such as universities and Catholic media houses.
Noting that for many years, membership in the region has been only at the national level of the Bishops’ Conferences’ Social Communications Department, he insisted that there is need to form associations of Catholic media professionals as it is in countries such as Nigeria and Congo, guided by the Statutes of SIGNIS.
“The ideal possibility for AMECEA now that we have more Catholic TVs and journalists who are working in the secular media. There is need to harness them together to form these associations because it also opens them up to possibilities to interact with other people in other countries in the network of the Catholic Church. Let us for the association so that they are able to meet and participate in various programs of SIGNIS,” said Bishop Hamungole.
SIGNIS which stands for The World Catholic Association for Communication, was founded in 2001 as an amalgamation of various Catholic media associations which included OCIC and UNDA.
The association aims at promoting Church communication apostolates such as journalism, television, radio, cinema by organizing or facilitating trainings and networking of the media professionals. Through membership the association, benefits include possibilities of access to professional networking, collaborating and partnering with other members in the region and globally; and participating in various activities at all levels; global visibility.
In AMECEA region, apart from the National Communications Departments in the Conferences, some Conferences such as Malawi and Kenya already have Associations of Catholic Journalists and associations of Catholic media houses. Some Conferences such as Tanzania and Uganda have Catholic Universities that have departments of Social Communications. However, there has never been an effort to have them registered as members in their own rights, so that they too can participate in regional and global SIGNIS activities.
The resolution at this meeting means that each Conference has to live up to the challenge of findings ways to open up to the possibility of having more members and to ensure that they actively participate in all SIGNIS activities.
Among other things, participants also discussed participation at SIGNIS Africa workshop event, which will take place in May 2020 in Kenya; and the SIGNIS World Congress which will take place in South Korea in 2021; how to build the capacity of the Catholic journalists and producers as professionals so that they can significantly contribute to social transformation; and how to enable Catholic social communications offices and Catholic media in the region to attain financial sustainability.
By Andrew Kaufa, smm
