French-speaking Africa: from November 22 to 26, Lomé 4 will focus on the theme "Youth and the Media."
Press release
Despite the coronavirus pandemic, FOMECAF officials have decided to organize a fourth edition of the Lomé meetings from November 22 to 26, 2021. They will focus on the theme "Youth and Media" and will welcome Dr. Abdoulaye Sangho, Director of TWR Africa, as their main guest. The event will be broadcast publicly on the web, but the number of participants attending in person will be limited to around 50.
The fourth annual meeting of Christian media professionals from French-speaking Africa will take place from November 22 to 26, 2021, in Lomé. The theme will be "Youth and Media." "We are seeing a generational divide in the French-speaking Christian world of Africa," explains Pastor Etienne Kiemdé, director of Radio Évangile Développement in Burkina Faso. An older generation no longer speaks the language, music, and means of communication of young people, 63% of whom are under 24 in West Africa!(1)" For many Christian leaders, the risk of failing to pass on the faith is now very high. "It is time to reach out to young Africans, and it is up to radio to set an example," adds Pastor Etienne Kiemdé.
Dr. Abdoulaye Sangho as keynote speaker
The keynote speaker was unanimously chosen to be Dr. Abdoulaye Sangho, director of TWR Africa, a recognized and influential specialist in the African Christian radio landscape. Dr. Abdoulaye Sangho, originally from Mali, lives and works in Côte d'Ivoire. He is the author of several books. He is also a Commander of the National Order for his contribution to the development of faith in Côte d'Ivoire.
Number of speakers recorded on video
Lomé 4 will be similar to Lomé 3. Fifty (50) carefully selected individuals will be invited to attend plenary meetings and workshops in person. These meetings will be broadcast live and recorded on the various social media channels of FOMECAF (Forum des médias chrétiens d’Afrique francophone), particularly Facebook and YouTube. For the record, around 100 people took these training courses online in 2020.
The afternoons will provide an opportunity for FOMECAF leaders to continue laying the foundations for the forum's activities and to devise a program for 2022.
Most of the speakers will be recorded on video. They will thus continue to enrich the radio/press training video library launched in 2020 by the previous edition of the Lomé meetings (2).
Despite the difficult health situation
The decision to organize Lomé 4 was made by FOMECAF leaders who met via videoconference on Friday, July 30. They assessed the health situation in West and Central Africa as well as in Europe. For the time being, travel remains very complicated and particularly expensive due to the pandemic. Despite this, the FOMECAF leadership confirmed that Lomé 4 would go ahead and reasonably postponed the organization of the national event "FOMECAF Benin" until spring 2022. The leaders of FOMECAF have given CICERI Lomé and Radio Réveil France, specifically Mr. Koffi Ahonon and Mr. Emmanuel Ziehli, the mandate to organize the event. (c)
The FOMECAF website (Forum of Christian Media in French-speaking Africa): https://medias.africa/
More information:
Africa: Pastor Étienne Kiemdé, Director of Radio Évangile Développement in Burkina Faso. Tel. + 226 70 38 81 83. Email: ekiem1[at]gmail.com. Website: https://medias.africa/
Europe: ÉEmmanuel Ziehli, Director of Radio Réveil France. Tel. +33 06 52 02 89 42. Email: emmanuel.ziehli[at]radioreveil.ch. Website: https://radio-reveil.org/
Notes:
1 See: https://www.populationpyramid.net/sources
2 See: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkEVvei_tLkEfTaJn31DTsQ/playlists
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The Lomé meetings in brief
The "Lomé" meetings began in January 2019. They offer Christian media professionals from French-speaking Africa the opportunity to receive a week of training and to network in order to develop a dynamic of exchange between professionals from different countries.
In January 2019, Radio Réveil en Suisse, an association that produces radio programs for the entire French-speaking world, decided to mark its 70th anniversary by inviting its radio partners in Africa to a training session in Lomé. Around 100 people took part in the event and signed the Declaration. of Lomé. The signatories pledged to renounce competition between evangelical and Protestant radio stations and to pool resources to improve the quality of their programs.
During the second edition of the Lomé meetings, the 170 or so participants engaged in a discussion on the theme "Let's invent integral radio!" ." They also decided to create the Forum of Christian Media in French-speaking Africa (FOMECAF) with the following founding committee members: Olivia Adiko, journalist and editor-in-chief of La Voix de l'espérance (Ivory Coast), Dr. Alphonse Teyabe, communications consultant (Cameroon), Timothée Amegan, pastor and CEO of Médiafrique (Togo), and Emmanuel Ziehli, director of Radio Réveil (Switzerland).
In 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lomé 3 offered around 50 participants in person and around 100 online the opportunity to reflect on "Media convergence and job versatility."
The Lomé 1 report: https//bit.ly/lome-1
The Lomé 2 report: https://bit.ly/lome-deux
The Lomé 3 report: https://bit.ly/Lome3
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Members of the FOMECAF committee
The following individuals are members of the FOMECAF core network or steering committee: Olivia Adiko Beugre(Radio la Voix de l’Espérance, Abidjan), Timothée Amegan(Médiafrique, Lomé), Etienne Kiemdé(Radio Évangile et développement, Ouagadougou), Koffi Ahonon(CICERI and Compassion Togo, Lomé), Dr.Abdoulaye Sangho(TWR, Abidjan), Dr. Alphonse Teyabe(media consultant, Yaoundé), and Emmanuel Ziehli(Radio Réveil France).
