PERSGA Conducted a three day regional workshop on Effective management of social networks for spreading environmental awareness and dissemination of results of monitoring of marine and coastal environment. The workshop was conducted at PERSGA Headquarters in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, during the period November 28th to 30th 2016. This workshop comes within the framework of implementing Component 3 of the regional project Strategic Ecosystembased Management of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden which is implemented in collaboration between PERSGA and the World Bank, and funded by the Global Environment Facility GEF. The workshop was attended by about thirty representatives from PERSGA member states responsible for media and environmental awareness, as well as the environmental monitoring programs. It aimed at providing participants with an over view of the various social networks and their uses to communicate and transfer awareness messages to the public.
In his opening address, H E PERSGA Secretary General Prof. Ziad Abu Ghararah welcomed the participants, and pointed out the importance of social media networks, which became one of the most prevalent means of communication in spite of their novelty. The ease of use and low cost of these networks played an important role in their wide spread. H E also emphasized that this training has been prepared in a special way to ensure providing the participants with the basic knowledge and skills for effective management of social networking sites and utilizing them in spreading environmental awareness and disseminating monitoring results, hence, contributing in conserving the coastal and marine environment.
Participants were trained on various topics such as the role of social networking in the development of behavior and skills to conserve the coastal and marine environment, an introduction to photography and videography techniques their basic skills and the importance of each one of them, the workshop also included an introduction to planning and management of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other popular social networks, as well as techniques and tools of social networking platforms and their effective use in environmental awareness. Furthermore, a practical training on content analysis of Facebook and Twitter and whats right and wrong in managing communication platforms has been included. The participants have also been trained on basic photography and videography skills as well as photo and video editing skills in order produce photos and video (multimedia content) of high artistic and technical value to be used effectively in social networking sites.
