A national campaign to support free, fair and peaceful elections.

The two-year project is focusing on the presidential elections in 2007 and the local council elections in 2008.

Its overall objective is to empower individuals to participate in a tolerant and inclusive society for sustainable peace.

The project is working towards this goal by delivering journalism training across Sierra Leone; developing co-productions; conducting population surveys and strengthening technical support to media.

Assessing training and equipment needs

Hassan Arouni is the director of the Trust's Sierra Leone Elections project. He arrived in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, on 22 January 2007.

Journalists use their own income to pay for fuel for their radio station’s generators   Hassan Arouni

'We immediately set off on a trip around the country to assess the training and equipment needs of the seven core radio stations that we'll be working with.

'Right across the board, we found stations with dedicated staff and volunteers. But they had very little in the way of basic equipment and training.'

Arouni found that erratic or non-existent power supplies mean that journalists use their own incomes to pay for fuel for their radio station’s generators.

Training begins

The project’s two international producer/trainers, Claire Ziwa and Natalie Morton, began training Skyy FM, the first of the seven radio stations, in Freetown, on 12 February 2007.

This training consisted of short formal lectures, followed by practical exercises for broadcast, including news-writing skills. The trainers also accompanied the station's reporters on their rounds to observe the challenges they face regularly at work.

These challenges seem to be many. For example, almost all of Skyy FM's reporters have no recording equipment. They used to scribble notes and numbers on scrap paper but now have notepads and contact books.

The Trust has also begun to work with Search for Common Ground on one of their programmes, 'Salone Bol', which reports developments in Parliament.

The project is funded by the UK's Department for International Development (DfID).