KENYA: SIGNIS Africa Trains Trainers on Online Project Application Platform
Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth
As embassies, organizations and companies are undergoing digital transformation to automate their operations, SIGNIS Africa, which is the continental branch of the World Catholic Association for Communication has trained the parties at continental, regional and national levels to familiarize them with the online Propagation of Faith project application and embrace the new policy.
“As we all know, we are now living in the digital age and many operations in different fields of life are migrating from the analogue to the digital platform,” SIGNIS President Fr. Prof. Walter Chikwendu Ihejirika told AMECEA Online in an interview on Thursday, June 11.
“The world Catholic Association for Communication, SIGNIS, has to play a leading role in the new era. Therefore, it becomes logical that we have to migrate from the old application format to the digital platform,” he added.
According to the SIGNIS President, in the old format which he describes as the “hard paper format,” the applicant had to manually send the application via mail to the General Secretariat of SIGNIS in Brussels, Belgium: in the new format, “the applicant simply completes the form online, uploads the necessary accompanying documents and submits the application just with a click.”
SIGNIS whose mission is to “engage with media professionals and support Catholic Communicators to help transform our cultures in the light of the Gospel by promoting Human Dignity, Justice and Reconciliation,” convened zoom workshops to conduct trainings for the Anglophone and Francophone participants.
“The training had a dual aim; to familiarize the participants with the new digital platform developed by SIGNIS for receiving and evaluating communication-related applications for funds submitted to Propaganda Fide, and to enhance the capacity of SIGNIS-Africa members to write viable projects for funding agencies,” Fr. Ihejirika disclosed.
He narrated the intent of trainings saying, “In our years of evaluating projects submitted for funding to Propaganda Fide, we note that sometimes, applicants may have good projects, but they lack the capacity to articulate the presentation in such a way that will meet the expectations of the funder.”
The training which was conducted by SIGNIS Project Development Consultant Mr. George Heston, focused on two main areas namely, the six steps in effective project proposal writing and how to go about the SIGNIS online project proposal application.
In total, 32 members participated from 26 African countries, including the board of SIGNIS Africa, Regional Social Communications Coordinators, National Social Communications Directors and national representatives of SIGNIS.
“We expect that the various heads will pass on the knowledge they have gained to all the Catholic communicators and institutions within their region or nations,” SIGNIS president expressed his expected outcome from the participants after the training.
“At the end, we expect that Catholic communicators will be able to write good projects, make effective use of the new digital platform created by SIGNIS (and also) make proper use of funds received, and submit reports after the execution of the projects,” he added.
