The need to combat false narratives and promote Media and Information Literacy has been emphasized at a training in Kaduna State.
The program was organized for Muslim women drawn from different organizations across the state.
Declaring the training open, the Kaduna State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, Hajiya Rabi Salisu Ibrahim, described the initiative as timely and commendable, noting that it was the first time such attention was being given to training of religious women on media literacy in the state.
Hajiya Rabi said false narratives, misinformation and disinformation have continued to create confusion and controversies on both social and conventional media platforms.
She added that the training would equip participants with the knowledge needed to identify false information and step down the lessons to other members of their communities.
Also Speaking, the Program Manager of Alkalanci, Bamas Victoria, explained that the organization’s objective was to verify information, combat misinformation and promote media literacy, especially among women in Northern Nigeria.
She noted that religious women remained influential within their communities, stressing that empowering them with media literacy skills would help spread accurate information down to grassroots and rural communities.
Also, the Managing Director of Mata Media, Hajiya Fauziyya Kabir Tukur, said the training was aimed at educating and enlightening Islamic scholars and teachers on the dangers of false narratives, misinformation and disinformation, as well as ways of identifying misleading content both online and offline.
Some participants expressed appreciation for the training, saying the increasing volume of information circulated on social media makes it difficult to distinguish between genuine and false reports.
They also shared personal experiences of encountering misleading information online.
Fatima Aliyu, FRCN Kaduna
