Ifeoma Okeke

Ifeoma Okeke, is the Head, Aviation Desk at BusinessDay Newspaper. She felt concerned that interns posted to her media organisation learn so little before returning to school, so she took up a female intern to train on how to write news and feature stories on the aviation sector, aside starting a quarterly staff training in October.

She also organised a training for members of staff. “I brought together over 35 staff of BusinessDay to attend the training. I also involved the intern who was working with me for seven weeks to ensure she learns the practical aspect of mass communication,” Ifeoma disclosed.

Demonstrating the impacts of her efforts, Ifeoma remarked that the intern held the fort for her and did an excellent work, writing good news and feature stories, while she (Ifeoma) was out of the country.

The intern identified simply as Eleanya, explained how the changes took place:

“She (Ifeoma) would always instruct me to go read through the papers on every aviation story, to get equipped on what the beat is all about and how BusinessDay stories are written. She always wanted me to attend events and learn new things.”

Following the training, staff of BusinessDay developed better understanding of the aviation sector, paving way for collaborative reporting with other desks, such as Technology and Metro, thereby allowing them advance solutions to issues in the aviation sector.

In order to sustain the impact, Ifeoma would be organising the training session on a quarterly basis. She also had requested that the editor give her more female interns to train.