Asia Regional Workshop on BAOBAB II and Communications Training, Bangkok (joint activity of CI and Caritas Asia) 

During four days, the communication officers of the 24 member organizations of Caritas in Asia reunited in Bangkok for a training on ways to improve communication of the organizations and to learn about the new internal communications platform of Caritas: Baobab II.

During the first 3 days, the participants learned how to efficiently use the new communications platform. They also shared a lot about their experiences on how they communicate during an emergency situation or launch a campaign and raise awareness for the campaign to be fruitful. The participants were also given some tools to learn about different communication strategies according to the situations the organization is facing or the goals they want to achieve, as well as the message they’d like to share.

The communication officers also worked on the strategy to adopt to support the forthcoming “Share the Journey Caritas Internationalis Global Campaign”, a campaign aimed at raising awareness about the migrants and their situation in order to “increase the spaces and opportunities within Caritas organizations … to enable local communities and migrants … to have more positive encounters”.

During this 4-day meeting, the participants enjoyed a social dinner where each of the participants dressed traditionally according to their country dress code. They also shared a piece of the own culture whether a song or a dance, or a tradition…

The fourth day, the participants made an exposure visit to the Televisions Studio of Triple V Broadcast Company, who owns a Thai TV channel as well as a newspaper. The participants first got to exchange on how the news are reported and shared before getting to visit the actual studio with the green screen, and all the cameras… This first exposure visit was followed by a second one later in the day to the Catholic Media, CBCT: they also got to visit the different workshops (the newspaper elaboration and printing section, as well as the radio and TV studio).

Overall those four days of training and exposure were very helpful and fruitful.