last day

After Eid holiday I hope your all doing well back to business. Welcome back.

This is my last day training , and it has been so tough compare to other previous days. In summary today we had one assignment which was intruduced last time on Tuesday, we had to write a feature by doing a reaserch through internet.

So I choose to write about gas in Mtwara , the benefits , the whole process and other related issues.Because it was a hard work , I used almost four hours in finding some facts on internet.Then I planned my feature story and used another three hours to write it.

What I liked today is to know when you use internet properly you can get a lot of informations but it also needs time. Because it is a last day I couldnt manage to finish my feature.

I work for electronic media so am used to write a feature in electronic format with pictures and sound so it was a little bit hard. But all in all we say once your a writter you can write.

Today assignments mostly was based on my article which was abot gas exploration in Mtwara , Ihave to find a lot of facts and bacgrounds on the process.

When i started this training  I was expecting to learn a lot and widen up my knowledge which on this last day  I can admitt that Yes I have gained a lot. I think because  I work at academic institution I will be able to lead my students as their practical tutor to be using internet to their work.

But my self I have gained an insightfull experiance of how to search for facts and informations through internet. This will help me during my daily routine.

My advice to improve the training is to increase days of training but also reduce hours of training.
Once again let me thank MISA TAN and VIKES for providing the training which has been so wonderfull. see u next time and  I promise that from now on I will start working on my blog so that I get more experiances.

Guten Tag .

Gas Exploration In Mtwara

Tanzania is about to become one of the major  Gas Producers in the world with an expectations of   transforming  national economy. The discoveries of Natural gas and oil  in Mtwara has attracted many foreign companies which are working now to explore gas in Mtwara and Lindi. According to Tanzania Petrolium development cooperation TPDC there are 8 firms from UK,Brazil and Norway conducting a deep sea explorations for oil and gas in Mtwara.

On 21st July this year Tanzania signed a contract with three chinese companies to start a construction of a pipeline From Mtwara to Dar es salaam.  China Petroleum Technology Development Corporation, Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Bureau and China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Corporation have been awarded the contract to set up the pipeline. This construction will cost a total of US $ 1.2 bill. and will be funded by China. The project which was inugurated in 2012 involves a 532 km pipeline from Mnazibay in Mtwara to songosongo in Kilwa district then to Dar es salaam.

The pipeline will have a capacity of 784 cubic feet of gas per day which is capable of generating 3920 MW which will be a great advantage to a Tanzania current demand .

What could be the Benefits?

It is said that Natural gas can provide 35% of the country electicity and on its completion this project will benefits people of Mtwara and Lindi in supplying reliable electricity and large number of population in Tanzania  but to be used in other sectors as explained here. Since 2006 Tanzania has been experiancing power rationing so with this project to some extent it can solve the problem.

The construction of the natural gas pipeline, also is said to be a low cost gas power generation that will be passed on to industrial and other users, putting Tanzania an attractive place to invest.

The whole process of gas oil takes time to realise the revenue.It is the investment that passes through different process. In recent years the processing of natural gas has been transfomed due to some advance in technolgy.Exploration for natural gas starts  with geologists examining the surface structure of the earth, and determining areas where it is geologically likely that petroleum or gas  might exist.  Gas and oil exploration needs investment in infrastructure.
 
Despite of having many advantages this project , is facing obstacles from the residents of Mtwara who seems they are not happy with what their government is trying to bring to them. They argue that for many years Mtwara and other sourthen regions of Tanzania has been neglegeted and that they have been least developed. In what it seems as a challenge to the project is when residents of Mtwara held a mass public rally to protest government"s plans to install  a pipeline to transport a gas from Mtwara to Dar es salaam Power plant.

During recent  demonstrations ,people of Mtwara insisted that the so  found gas should remain in their town  and not to be  transferred to Dar es salaam and that it should be used to utilize local developments. But the government decision is  that  the pipeline will be constructed. The goverment deployed Peoples Defence Forces to crack down protesters in May this years. death and injuries was reported.

But What went wrong?

With all violance and voices from people , it seems to be a problem somewhere. One It might be true that residents of Mtwara  are being  misled by some politicians because a gas pipeline will help the national economy and benefits all Tanzanians. Tanzanian natural resources is for all Tanzanian not a certain place where its only found.

Minister responsible for Energy and Minerals Prof. Sospeter Muhongo said the gas issue is being politicised and Tanzanians should avoid engaging politics into serious matters of national interest because it leads a country into chaos.

But these allegations are being denied by Mtwara politicians who formed an alliance to coordinate demonstration against governments plan.They are also blaming the goverment of being blind not to see the needs of people. Mr. Seleman Litope who is a secretary of an alliance of eight political parties in Mtwara said that its a funny thing what is used by the regional government to deal with a situation.

From what it seems the situation in Mtwara its not about the gas pipeline rather people are tired of promiseless that they need a place to show their anger , extremly poverty despite of being rich in natural resources.
Well president Jakaya Kikwete said  that 16% of the gas extracted in Mtwara would go to Dar es Salaam, with the remaining to stay in Mtwara for various uses, including for export by sea.

Other efforts of government to improve Mtwara includes , expanding  ports, fertiliser and cement factories, road improvements, a gas processing plant, and several educational programmes.

All the above need people involvemet so civic education should be emphasised in order to avoid people misunderstaning when it comes to project implementation.

day 2

Thanks to my God, colleagues and our Trainier Mr. Peik, I am enjoying quite much the session.

On day two we started posting a summary of what we learnt the previous day, continued with journalistic research assigments and writing a story.

Concerning blog posting I actually knew  how to add some gadgets to my blog and managed to add my fellow blogs site to my blog, you can them here. I also added some news agencies which I like to visit every morning.

What I liked from today session is how to plan your story before writing.

The insist was also on search tips when starting to find something on internet you should be able to know what and where to find those information if its google or direct from website if only know the adress.

Then after researching you need to think on how to structure your story in your mind and on paper.

Then we continued with some journalistic research assignments e.g. Smart Kigali, the friendly match between Chipolopolo and Brazil , Kenyatta and ICC. We had to choose one topic and write story about it. I wrote about Chipolopolo because I love football.

We finnished a day by looking on how to add links to your story together with pictures.

How I planned my Story

I took much time to go through internet , finding facts on where the match will take place, at what time. Then I have to find some backgrounds information about both teams. From different sources I jotted down some helping facts , also crosschecking on other sources.

Then I wrote a story having in mind that Chipolopolo as a emerging success team will be taking a giant team which have won five times world champions.

That ends here but we are having a big assignments on thursday because tomorrow is a Holiday.

Chipolopolo

The Zambian football team mostly known as  "Chipolopolo" will be facing Brazil in an historical  international friendly match which will kick off at the National stadium in the Chinese capital city  of Beijing this tuesday .

Chipolopolo faces Brazil under French interim coach Patrice Beaumelle after his countryman coach Herve Renard quits caoching that team one week ago.

Being his first official Match, Patrice said that it will prove how good his team is and that it deserved to take world big teams.

He also pointed out not to fear Brazil who have been world champions for five times,  as he is prepared well despite of missing six key players due to some injuries.

Zambian Team

The 2012 african champions  will be playing after failing to qualify for the 2014 world cup which will be hosted by Brazil next summer. In their final group match,  Zambia lost 2-1 agaisnt Ghana.

However, Brazilian coach  Luiz Felipe Scolari will be using this match as part of their preparations after beating South Korea 2-0 in Seoul on saturday again in a friendly match.

Many believe that this historical match will be so entertaining due to success which have be shown by Chipolopolo boys  in recent years, we gonna have to wait for 90 min to see if the Juniors takes down the giant.

Hallo fans!

Its my second day in a training, but I would like to give you a summary of what I have learnt the previous day.

So yesterday we started by introducing each other , we are about 10 participants from different places together with our trainer Peik Johansson.

We went through programme schedule for our training and Peik told us that we will mostly be practical on searching different issues through internet, aims of a training and our expectations after three day training.

As a journalist we all know what is investigative Journalism(IJ) so we started to explore the meaning of IJ through internet and later find what is investigative internet journalism(IIJ). We found out to be many materials and manuals which tells us of what does it mean, e.g Wikipedia, articles. In  short there are different materials which guides you to know the conceipt of IIJ.

We also learnt the charactaristics of IJ reporter that he/she should have curiosity,passion and logical thinking in digging some facts.

In day 1 we managed to create our own blogs which will be used to post what we have done during the training and my blogs is called Leonajana.blogspot.com, and here your are!.

What I really liked during my entire day one session is how I practice of what I am learning spontinously . I always dont like  spending so much time  on PC because of my sightness but I think I can not avoid it during this training, but dont worry we almost finishing.

I remember some research assignments like how to find the population of Iringa,Kikwete statement on land investors in Kisarawe, Tanzania inflation rate, Precision air current  profit reports, MCT phone number , etc.

In searching for any facts on internet , one needs to choose some proper words to search, but you can also search by months, days, hours or years just to get different materials.

This is day 1, please dont miss day 2.

day 1

Hi! everyone, am Sylvia Mwehozi a young journalist from Tanzania based in Dar es salaam.

I am currently working  with University of Dar es salaam media houses, I am so humbled to be part of this training .

 This week I am one of the participant  in the training of "Investigative Internet Journalism" which has been prepared by MISA TAN in collaboration with VIKES . I am so thankful again to be part of this team as I expect to gain some more knowldege on how to do investigative stories using internet.

As we all know that social media has now become so close to everyone to share instant news or breaking news , I think if I can use some of my social media pages to find a certain thing I could get so many unexpected things or get feedback on some issues.

So today we have started already to get an idea on how these social media can be used to acquire some different information.

see you tomorrow, on my second day .