We were in Nyeri town over the weekend for a training on Blogging and Social Media. The half day workshop was held at the Batian Hotel in Nyeri town and was attended by 85 participants drawn mainly from the Universities in the town.
The BAKE team arrived in Nyeri town on Thursday and visited various learning institutions for introductions with the administration with the aim of having BAKE chapters in the colleges.
On Saturday, the training workshop started at 9.30am in the Mt. Kenya room of the Batian Hotel.
BAKE’s Director of Operation Robert Kunga started off the workshop with an introduction of BAKE and our aim of doing a training workshop in Nyeri. He spoke at length on the evolving role of the internet in particular the impact that blogging and social media continues to have in the Kenyan Media and society in general.
Njeri Wangari – BAKE’s Director of Programs started the training sessions by taking the participants through the basics of blogging. Due to lack of a reliable internet connection, the participants who were mostly students from various colleges could not create their own blogs as part of the session which was a hands on skills training.
The students did however take notes as Njeri together with one of the students created a blog on wordpress.
At the end of the session on blogging basics. The students had learnt how to create a blog on wordpress, create a blogpost, embed a video, a link and a photo.
Robert Kunga took to the stage once more, this time round, to introduce Social Media and how it is changing how people communicate or talk to government and brands.
Aggrey John – An award winning blogger who runs super Foota blog, spoke at length on increasing online readership as well as the do’s and don’ts to increasing traffic through other social media channels.
The last session ended with James Wamathai, the BAKE director of Finance and Partnerships who delved on the different opportunities available online and how bloggers can make money from their blogs.
The event was very well attended by a very engaged audience that sought clarification and advice in every of the sessions that our trainers held.
We finished the training at 1.30 and proceeded to engage the students further during lunch as well as hold one on one sessions. We were able to identify dedicated students from the Dedan Kimathi University who will work closely with us in setting up a chapter in their University in the coming months.
The biggest challenge we faced was internet connectivity which hindered the students from having the hands on skills.
As we strategies to carry out the next BAKE Chapter training in Mombasa, we are working to give a better experience to our participants.
We are looking to carry out at least 3 BAKE Chapter trainings in various counties before the end of this year.