The Supervising Provincial Police Commander (PPC),Rennell and Bellona Province, Sergeant Chris Tongaka welcomes the Media Awareness Training conducted at the Tigoa Police 28 May – 1 June 2018 as it will enable his officers to make more use of the power of the media to spread information about the work of the police.
Five participants including the Supervising PPC and other officers at the Tigoa Police Station in West Rennell attended the training.
“Not a lot of news have come out to the public about the activities that police officers in Rennell and Bellona Province have done but with the completion of this one-week training we now have a better understanding of the processes for informing the public about our activities. We need to get news about our activities into the public media as the media helps shapes the opinion of the public,” says Supervising PPC Sergeant Tongaka
He adds: “I believe police have been criticised in the past by the public because there’s been a lack of information about its activities in the public domain. But with more information being sent out recently, there’s been a deeper appreciation of the work of the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force.”
Supervising PPC Tongaka says, “If we the police want our communities to have confidence in us, we must be transparent about our work and one of the ways we can do this is using the media including newspapers, radio and now the social media which is accessible by our people.”
He says, “I want to thank the Commissioner of Police, Matthew Varley for endorsing this training program and Commander of the Solomon Islands Police Development Program (SIPDP) John Tanti for funding the Training. But more importantly thank you for bringing the Media Advisor, Johnson Honimae and the Media Officer, Constable Nancy Piasi right down to us here at the Tigoa Police Station to deliver the training.”
During the Media Awareness Training participants were briefed on the RSIPF Commissioner’s Order on Media, the RSIPF Media Strategy, expectations of the Media, how to draft a media release, interview techniques, photography, dealing with media enquiries, developing relations with the media and cyber-crime.
At the end of the Training participants produced several media releases covering reports of crime and other activities by police at the Tigoa Police Station.
The Media Awareness Training is being coordinated by SIPDP as part of the strengthening of the capability of the RSIPF Media Unit to market the RSIPF with the aim of increasing the confidence of communities in the Force.
The Tigoa Police Station is the last Station where the Training has been conducted. Similar training has been conducted for officers in all the police stations at provincial capitals including Honiara City. A total of 111 police officers including provincial police commanders, departmental directors, other senior officers as well as well as probationers participated in the Training since February this year.