CIO Trains BIO
Write, click, share and hear… This is what the Barangay Information Officers (BIOs) must do in order to finish the one-day training.
The City Information Office (CIO) imparted the fundamental principles of photography, basic of news writing suitable for beginners, and some other topics on Gender and Development discussed by the City Population Office in a “Writing on Drugs, Basic Photography, Structuring A Facebook Page Workshop and Gender Sensitivity Orientation for Barangay Information Officers (BIOs)” on June 10, 2022 at Dolores Lake Resort, Lake Sebu, South Cotabato.
As part of an initiative and best practice in communications applied to community development, the CIO held its second seminar for BIOs. One of the goals is for BIOs to fully understand their role in disseminating developmental news and information in their community and, eventually, throughout the city as the city government’s primary partner in disseminating developmental news and information.
“We cannot contain all information because we do not know what is happening at the grassroots level,” City Information Officer Romar A. Olivares said when giving an overview of the activity. “That is why the role of our barangay, especially the BIOs, is very important as you are the information arm of your respective barangay,” he added.
Furthermore, one of the BIO’s mandates is to collect and disseminate news and information to their constituents, as well as to the CIO for dissemination to the general public, in order to establish institutional links between the government and the people at the grassroots level in their community. As a result, following their Basic News Writing Workshop the year before, the BIO was taught the fundamentals of photography in order to train them in taking appropriate and relevant photos for their content and news articles.
One of the other goals is to establish a network of active individuals who will identify, support, and promote the anti-drug cause. They would focus on becoming a third-party voice for City Anti-Drug Abuse Council (CADAC) anti-illegal drug activities, as well as increasing community awareness and participation. The BIOs were tasked with writing a news article about their anti-illegal drugs accomplishments as part of the CADAC program on advocacies and IEC Efforts.
During the seminar, the importance of promoting gender equality was also emphasized. Meanwhile, the “Gender Sensitivity” Orientation teaches about the concept of gender, how different genders have different perspectives, and how important it is to close the gender gap in order to support equality. City Population Officer Janet Demonteverde helped the BIOs in understanding basic Gender and Development (GAD) concepts such as the distinction between sex and gender and the significance of gender in development.
The seminar also taught the BIOs the fundamentals of gathering data and facts in order to write information using social media as a popular communication medium. Considering Facebook has billions of active users each month, the CIO’s technical staff explained the great benefit of using the platform to reach and connect with a target audience, as well as the benefit of converting their barangay Facebook account into a Facebook page. By attending the aforementioned seminar, the BIO will be able to learn the process as a great starting point for creating a Facebook Page and growing their audience through timely, relevant, and dependable content.
“Whatever happens in your barangay should be made known not only to those in your barangay but also to those who have access to the so-called digital. Because, whether you like it or not, we live in a time when cell phone access is very important…so you should understand how it works…”, Mayor Eliordo U. Ogena said in his message.
The aforementioned seminar is one in a series of capacity-building seminars aimed at unlocking the potential and developing the skills of the BIO designate in order for them to become a strong partner in the city government’s information dissemination efforts.