The editor of SWARA, Andy Hill, held a two-day workshop for project staff in December to help them communicate more effectively for EAWLS members, donors and supporters.

“Communicating your projects is the surest way of fundraising,” said Hill, who has edited the society’s quarterly magazine for the past three years.

Special emphasis was laid on lively, readable articles for the bi-monthly EAWLS newsletter, which reaches more than 5,000 people and informs them about EAWLS project work and developments in the broader conservation field.

“We need to recognize the importance of using the newsletter as a tool of letting our members know what we are doing”, EAWLS Executive Director Nigel Hunter said in opening remarks.

Hill, who has been a journalist for 40 years, 30 of those as a correspondent with the international news agency Reuters, helped staff craft project reports into documents that EAWLS members and supporters need to read to keep abreast of what their society is doing.

Staff also learned how to put together press releases that would demand publication and follow-up in the media, write short news items for the EAWLS web and the legal pitfalls of publication.

Hill is a Director of MediaTrain, a UK-based training company that specializes in skilling up journalists in Africa and helps NGOs and the U.N. agencies make best use of the media.

By Naftal Nyabuto, Kenya Forest Working Group.