WOFAN trains staff on photography, videography, drone

A not-for-profit organisation, Women Farmers Advancement Network (WOFAN) has reiterated its commitment to staff development and capacity building.

The organisation said capacity building for staff takes priority towards achieving set goals and enabling them to meet the demands of the operating environment.

The Country Director, WOFAN-ICON2 Project, Dr Salamatu Garba stated this during a two-day training of WOFAN staff on photography, Videography and the use of Drone held in Abuja on Wednesday.

Dr Garba said the training is to enhance the knowledge of the organisation’s personnel on how to take qualitative pictures, how to fly drones to cover hard-to-reach areas, and how to help farmers understand what they are taught about farm management.

‘’Our activities involve interaction with farmers, especially women and extension workers, so with this training we intend to improve on how our staff can take qualitative pictures and videos during field exercise so that farmers in other areas can be tutored on good agricultural procedures, Salamatu Garba said.

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‘’We decided to learn how to use drones to improve our activities such in a situation of flooding and we need to take pictures and videos of the extent of damage or in some instances when we need to take measurement of farmlands, for accuracy that will help our planning.’’

‘’That’s why we had to bring our staff from most of the states we are operating from such as Kano, Bauchi, Gombe and the FCT so that they can train others.’’

‘’We give importance to the use of ICT to enhance  our storytelling to rural women and farmers.’’

According to her, the support WOFAN enjoys from the Mastercard Foundation tagged WOFAN-ICON2 project aimed at reducing poverty in African from 2020 to 2030 by 10m there in Nigeria, WOFAN is carrying out that effort by ensuring that over 600,000 vulnerable especially women and youth have a means of livelihood.

‘’The Mastercard Foundation support of WOFAN to eradicate poverty was for 5 years whereby we would provide sustainable livelihood for  over 600,000 women and youth, however, our partnership has just been extended for another 5 years whereby we are presently working at empowering more than 1.3m vulnerable to be able to support others.

‘’’ So this training of our staff is part of the initiative as we are focused on rural development and support for farmers, women and youth. We need to show them success stories and to have recordings of their challenges so as to easily address that for them.’’

‘’Presently, we are working with over 20,000 farmers in FCT rural communities, we are working in Kano, Jigawa, Bauchi, Gombe and Adamawa among others.”

SolaceBase reports that the Photography and Videography trainer, Malam Abdulwahab Said Ahmad during the sessions explained to the trainees methods of snapping qualitative pictures with measurements and the calculation when using lens and videography.

Also, the drone pilot trainer, Malam Abdulaziz Abdulaziz put them through on how to fly a drone and the nitty gritty.

He highlighted how fast drones can capture and record from a far distance with high resolution especially when deployed to use on farm which the trainees so much need the knowledge for.

 The participants at the training sessions who were grilled on the theoretical and practical aspects of photography, Videography and flying of drones were full of appreciation for the opportunity of the capacity building, assuring to judiciously utilize the knowledge acquired.