Journalists receive training on reporting Civil Registration and Vital Statistics

Ivan Zhakata in MUTARE

 

JOURNALISTS from various media houses are being trained on reporting Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) to enable them to write compelling stories, evaluate and communicate Government public health achievements.

 

The training is being conducted by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (Zimstat) in partnership a United States of America-based organisation called Vital Strategies.

 

In an interview, Zimstat public relations and communications officer Mr Roland Chiringa said training of journalists will enable them to report from an informed point of view and link them with the necessary Government departments that can provide clarification when necessary.

 

“This training will help them to report responsibly on information related to CRVS and journalists are key to raising awareness on the importance of birth and death registration hence the need for them to understand the processes involved in CRVS,” he said.

 

“The aim of the training is improving journalists’ abilities to source, understand and translate relevant data into rich and compelling stories and to evaluate and communicate Government public health achievements. The training will enable journalists to understand what CRVS is and why it is important and newsworthy. It will also help them to identify major sources of public health data with a focus on CRVS data.

 

“They will also understand how to access and interpret CRVS data for use in stories and how to do the best analysis using CRVS data so that they can refer to statistics they understand and tell a story using CRVS data about the value of strong CRVS systems.”

 

Civil Registration is a Government service that establishes one’s legal identity and civil status through birth, death, marriage and divorce registration while Vital Statistics are a collection of vital events in a lifetime of a person as well as relevant characteristics.