Journalists specialising in migration issues in Benin

Media professionals were in a training workshop on migration issues yesterday, Wednesday 12 September 2018 at the Thomas Mègnanssan Media House in Cotonou. Organized by the NGO Lives and Values in partnership with the UPMB and Helvetas Swiss Inter cooperation, this workshop aims among others to the specialization of journalists in Benin on the theme "migration and development".

Page 1 of the daily newspaper La Dépêche, N°374 of Thursday, September 13, 2018. It deals with the specialization of journalists in Benin on migration and development issues.

Create a network of media professionals who are experts in migration issues. This is one of the reasons behind the two-day capacity building workshop initiated at the Benin Journalists' Place. Opened yesterday, Wednesday 12 September 2018, the workshop that will end tomorrow Thursday, was held around the theme: role and responsibility of the media in the treatment of migration. For the first day, participants were given three different presentations. The first two presentations by academic Benoît Sossou Koffi focused on 'terminologies and sources of information' in migration and 'levels of vulnerability of migrants on the migratory route'. The third and final panel of the day was Media professionals were introduced to the approach and perspectives of one of the workshop partners, Helvetas on migration and local development.

Article on the training workshop for Beninese journalists on migration and development. Extract from page 12 of the daily La Dépêche N°374, Thursday 13 September 2018

Cette dernière communication présentée par Hyacinthe V. Agbadjagan a démarré par Helvetas' motivation to integrate migration and development in 2011 into its portfolio, ending with the approaches and perspectives of the partner structure on migration. In its development, the Helvetas migration and development project leader, Hyacinthe V. Agbadjagan, has established a close link between 'migration and development', two concepts that are considered contradictory by public opinion. While supporting how migration contributes to development, the communicator demonstrated on a World Bank study the high concentration-the high rate-of migration from northern countries to southern ones. According to the study, international migration is estimated at 43 million individuals per year, domestic or national at 70 million, or a total of 1/7 migrant per year in the world. It should be noted that Helvetas has laid the foundations of its migration policy on the principle of "Governance and peace". The Swiss-based structure in Benin for 20 years is ready to accompany the population on migration issues.

INTEGRAL DE LA DEPECHE EDITION DU JEUDI 13 SEPTEMBRE 2018 (1).pdf

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No more confusion between migration and mobility.

This is one of the points made by the academic Sossou Koffi Benoît during his presentations at the workshop. For him, the theme of migration differs from that of immobility by the notion of change of habitual place of residence. The two concepts converge in the definition of legal status, voluntary nature, country, territory of a country, causes of displacement and population movement, said the communicator. The academic also insisted on concepts of migratory otherness that must be treated with care, he says. These include the concepts of Aboriginal, Allochthonous and Allochthonous. For the communicator, the concept of indigenous belongs to positive migratory otherness and those of alien and allochthonous belong to negative migratory otherness. The allochthonous are non-threatening foreigners and threatening allochthenes, clarified the teacher at the university. Journalists must therefore avoid using some of these expressions for social cohesion.

Par Hubert Tomèga