Mobile Community Zimbabwe 2015 graduation ceremony date has been set for Friday 25 September.
The graduation ceremony will take place during the annual Shoko Arts Festival running from the 24th to the 26th of September.
Preparations for this year’s MCZ graduation and awards ceremony are at an advanced stage. A total of 76 participants were trained for the 2014-2015 training cycle and the bulk of these are expected to graduate.
The pilot for MCZ started in 2013 when 46 participants were trained.
The participants which were drawn from partner media and civic organisations underwent five day trainings on the use of the android StoryMaker mobile storytelling application and basics of video, audio and picture story production.
Each group also went through a 12 weeks mentorship period with the help of a mentor to produce stories. Participants were expected to produce a community oriented story per week.
Partnering organisations were Her Zimbabwe, who are the coordinators of the MCZ project, Alpha Media Holdings (AMH), Humanitarian and Information Facilitation Centre (HIFIC), Zimbabwe Association of Community Radio Stations (ZACRAS), The Source, National University of Science and Technology (NUST), Midlands State University (MSU) among others.
MCZ uniquely partnered with media training institutions, NUST and MSU for the 2015 training cycle after the realisation that graduates being released into the media industry are falling short of multimedia skills that are now a requirement for any practitioner in the 21st century.