LEADING UGANDA

Coordinated by By Irene Lamunu

Leadership Magazine Trains Social Communicators

Some of the Participants and facilitators at the workshop

IN a bid to make it a publication of wider national coverage, the Leadership Magazine has trained volunteer social communicators from different parts of the country. During the 3-day residential workshop held at Trinity College Nabbingo between December 4 and 7, 2011, at least twenty-five young men and women, some qualified journalists, responded to the invitation, which was also intended to scale up the local circulation.

Leadership Magazine is a monthly glossy print and electronic publication produced under the auspices of the Trustees of the Comboni Missionaries in Uganda. Its uninterrupted production started in Gulu, in 1956, under Comboni Italian Fr. Tarcisio Agostoni (now aged 91). The most regularly read Catholic product, surviving partly on subscriptions, sells in different countries around the world.

Organised with funds raised through SIGNIS, the World Catholic Association for Communication – a Brusselsbased lay ecclesial movement for professionals in the communications industry – the workshop tapped into the vast experiences of the professional facilitators and participants, before igniting suggestions to make the magazine even more competitive. There was general observation that the magazine and its website are competitive even in today’s market, but require more contributions to make them even better.

Participants drew from challenges in their areas of hail, to suggest ways that could increase the readership of Leadership. The social communicators also shared views on the common challenges in the field of communications, where individuals need sensitization as to the importance of communication through media. For communication, they noted, needed to be not just informative, but also formative, if Leadership is to contribute to shaping society.

Out-going editor of the magazine Jean-Marie Nsambu said the training was further intended to identify a number of Leadership ambassadors, who would disseminate the relevance of the magazine to individuals, so that readers feel more attached to the magazine as co-owners Oriented in Christian values, the Leadership Magazine, participants heard, is not necessarily a publication for sermons, but one for integral reporting, analysis and pictorial design, covering a spectrum of topics in politics, economics, business, sports, social relations and religions, among other interests.

The magazine currently produces eleven issues of Leadership and a liturgical calendar every year. In each of the months issue, Leadership covers national news, and stories on Africa and Uganda. It also carries researched and investigated feature stories on topical issues of national catchment and those about other countries and their relations in the international arena.

Nabbingo’s staff members led by the headmistress and her deputy, respectively Cotilda Nakatte Kikomeko and Beatrice Bananuka, as well as the college chaplain, Rev. Fr. Charles Ssekabira, who celebrated Mass daily for the participants, rendered particular support to the workshop. It was recommended that follow-up seminars be organized regularly for better and sustainable effects of the vision of the workshop.