Media urged to educate nation about radiation

Siphakeme Mnindwa

IT is the duty of journalists to educate the nation about the peaceful uses of nuclear applications and their contribution to the socioeconomic development of Zimbabwe, a Radiation Protection Authority of Zimbabwe (RPAZ) official has said.

Addressing journalists at a media training workshop in Harare recently, RAPZ director of regulatory services Mr Innocent Mayida said journalists have an important role to play in informing and educating the nation about radiation technology.

“Journalists are the interested parties of RPAZ, if they can understand about radiation the public will.

“Nuclear applications can be used for peaceful means in health, industry, farming and other areas. Many people think nuclear is about bombs and wars. There is more to it than that,” said Mr Mayida.

Meanwhile, RPAZ Corporate Communications Officer Mr Shingirai Huni said the second session of the workshop focused on radiation application.

“The second session of our Radiation Safety Awareness training for journalists focused on two things – Applications of radiation, whereby we looked at the peaceful applications of radiation in our day to day lives that include medical diagnostics, food preservation, radiography, industrial gauging among other things.

“And principles of radiation protection, whereby we looked at the appropriate standards of protection people and the environment from the harmful effects of radiation focusing on the three main principles of radiation protection, namely – justification of practice, optimisation of protection and safety and, dose limitation,” said Mr Huni.