9.Mr Isaac Neney Angola Angola 10.Mr Peter Moyo The Standard Zimbabwe 11. Mr Cassian Malima Mtanzania Jumapili Tanzania 12. Ms Gale Nkomo Dikgang Publishing Company, Gaborone Swazi Observer, Manzini Botswana 13. Ms Sazakele Ntiwane Swaziland MISA Regional Secretariat, Windhoek Sunday World, Johannesburg Sunday Times, Johannesburg The Namibian, Windhoek Independent Newspapers Cape, Cape Town 12-16 January, 2003 Report sent Report sent 21 October-12 November Report still to be sent August 1-22, 2003 Report sent September 22-26, 2003 Report sent Johannesburg and Cape Town continue to be the preferred training grounds for media practitioners who go on attachment. Chapters are urged to encourage their members to seek alternative places and in particular to consider local or national media houses for attachment opportunities, rather than going to a place which has state of the art equipment and when participants return to their work stations, they find they are unable to practice what they learnt due to the lack of equipment. In all the reports received from the participating journalists, they noted what the exposure to other media houses within or outside, were a real eye opener. The most detailed and vivid reports are those from the participants from the community radio stations who went to Bush Radio in Cape Town. Bush Radio has set up a training unit called the Broadcast Training Institute which devotes itself to training of all community radio staff or volunteers. The participants are given intensive theory sessions, looking at programme production and how to involve the community in programming, script writing, conducting radio interviews, setting up appointments, setting up a series of programmes under one topic and much more. The participants expressed how they benefited from the hands on training on they got to experience as one participant explained how he was told to manage the station after some crisis had evolved and this for him was the highlight of the training. Another participant tells of how a power failure gave him an opportunity to learn how to operate some of outside broadcast equipment which he had not been able to use at his work station. The participants who went to Bush Radio were also able to attend Bush Radio’s Annual General Meeting which was also an eye opener to them. On going back to their work stations, they have been able to practice some of what they learnt and have spoken about the benefits of taking part in the exchange programme as we have received a number of applications from staff working with community radio stations. Of the 13 participants, only 2 were women raising the question why women do not apply to take part in the programme. Perhaps the Chapters need to make a concerted effort to appeal to the female members of the organization and explain the benefits to them. The appeal is still open to female journalists in particular to take part in the programme and an effort from the regional secretariat will be made to find out where the problem really lies. MISA Annual Report (April 2003 – March 2004) 84