The department has achieved alot over the year, it has been the focal department in the implementation of “The Broadcasting for Entreprenuership Development in the Rwenzori region” project which is supported by both Stem Van Afrika (SvA) and Toro Development Network (ToroDev). The projects goal is to ensure that rural small scale entreprenuers (women and youth) utilise the services of the widely accessed channel of communication (FM radio’s) in Rwenzori region to easily access markets for their produce and services, access to improved seeds and access to appropriate technology among others for better socio-economic development.
The department successfully oversaw the carrying out of survey across the Rwenzori region districts in 2010 which was assesing the needs of rural small scale entreprenuers from rural FM radio stations. The survey has helped rural FM radio journalists, managers and proprietors appreciate the involvement of radio listeners in the programming and designing of radio programmes.
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| Solomon Akugizibwe (right) monitoring a participants project |
To help in fundraising, public relations and networking, the department achieved alot in developing and strenthening ToroDev social media in 2011. It started a facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Toro-Development-Network-ToroDev/208441649166138 where latest articles, videos, audio about ToroDev published on online media are posted to keep all stakeholders abreast with the organisations activities. In addition to the existing multimedia website http://torodev.kabissa.org/, the organisation has also set up a blog http://torodev.blogspot.com/ to keep, strengthen and build a strong loyal internet community.
Since the organisation is transforming into a research institution, a youtube page has also been created http://www.youtube.com/user/torodev so that research work doesnt only stop at being documented in text, for lobbying and advocacy purposes especially in the fields of ICTs and Entreprenuership policies, text researches will be complemented with video documentaries which will be skillfully designed and disseminated to the loyal ToroDev online communities.
In this finacial year (2011/2012), the department is planning to have a fully functional video editing section to strengthen ToroDev advocacy and lobbying capacity in the country.
The department staff will also receive more on-job trainings in research to ensure that the organisations activities and research work are published on on-line academic journals to influence policies even at the international levels based on empirical evidence from the region.
The year 2010/2011 has been a great year for the organisation because it has led to the establishment of a strong network of all FM radio journalists on all the nine (9) Rwenzori region based FM radio stations and triggered the creation of eight (8) rural radio listenership clubs across the Rwenzori region districts. Continued sharing between rural FM radio journalists and rural small scale entreprenuers which was extremely very limited before the implementation of rural broadcasting for entreprenuership development in Rwenzori region has helped trigger healthy information sharing for improvement of grassroot household incomes.
Solomon Akugizibwe - Head of projects, research and development department
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