The National Electoral Commission (NEC) has ended a day’s training workshop at the Youth Sport Club hall along Mahei Vangahun Road in Kenema city for Non Governmental Organisations, Community Based Organisations, the press and civil society.
Giving an overview of the workshop one of the facilitators, Francis Balema Musa who is the Public Relations/Voter Education Officer in Kenema, said the idea was to train the participants so that they would in turn train the community people in their localities on polling procedures.
He spoke about the political party’s code of conduct, nomination, campaign and public behaviour before, during and after August 11.
Mr Musa explained the role of observers/agents and polling monitors, saying that “the observer’s role is different form the role of the monitors as observers are there to observe the process while the monitors are to strictly monitor the procedures of the polling stations”.
Another facilitator, Eku D. Scortland who is the coordinator of Opportunity Skills Training Centre (OTS), spoke about the Pause, Assess, Listen and Solve methodology (P.A.L.S) in resolving conflict in our communities.
He said, “democracy is the support the holding of free, fair, credible and non violent elections, to raise the awareness of grassroots participation in the democratic process, to participate in conflict mitigation and violence prevention and to initiate and implement strategies for the strengthening of democracy”.
Speaking to the press Cecilia Wilson spoke about how educative the workshop was and vowed to go into her community to educate her people.