AIP study trip to Ohio: regional follow-up workshops
Workshops are being held for AIP members in the Western Cape, North West, Free State and Eastern Cape provinces.
The workshops aim to:
- Share lessons learned in Ohio
- Learn about challenges faced by publishers in this region
- Support sustainability of publishers in this region
- Facilitate collaboration between publishers in this region
- Strengthen AIP in this region
The first workshop in Cape Town on 7th and 8th August was held in the midst of a city-crippling taxi strike. The participants were fortunate in being able to check into the hotel on Sunday and stay until the workshop ended on Tuesday. The Tuesday sessions were condensed to allow delegates to leave at lunch time, avoiding the dangers of travelling at rush hour.
The sessions focused on lessons which the trainers thought would be of most practical value to the attending publishers who are all needing to find new revenue streams in the face of rising print and other costs.
US Embassy Public Affairs Officer Stacy Barrios and Communications Officer Nurahn Schroeder also braved the Cape Town streets to spend an hour with the delegates, listening to stories of the trip to Ohio and hearing how delegates have implemented what they learnt. They said they were impressed with the online content AIP produced on the trip for those who couldn’t attend and offered to help find further opportunities to support AIP members in the future.
AIP Board member and Western Cape chairperson, Anetta Mangxaba, said “On behalf of the AIP board and my ED I just wanted to say thank you to all publishers who took the time out of their busy schedules to come and attend the workshops may what has been shared over the past few days be helpful to you and your business.”
Participants’ feedback on the workshop included the following comments:
- “Well done to all who ensured such an informative workshop.”
- “Too short!”
- “Great. Peer to peer approach was awesome. Active learning.”
- “Really educational and informative.”
- “We need to work together and introduce these ideas into our publications.”
- “Very informative. Thank you!”
The view was also expressed that local publishers need their own printing presses in order to be sustainable and further discussions will be organised to further discuss possibilities.
View the slideshows of the sessions by clicking below: