Pretoria: The Namibia Press Agency (Nampa) has started training regional information officers from the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) to contribute directly to its wire service, opening a route for their regional stories to reach national and international audiences.According to Namibia Press Agency, the training was held on Tuesday at The Dome in Swakopmund, on the sidelines of the Effective Communicators Conference (ECC26), a conference for communication professionals taking place from 14 to 17 July under the theme 'Communication Reconsidered: A driving force for constant progress.' Nampa Acting Chief Executive Officer Jata Kazondu emphasized the impact of unaddressed social problems in the regions on young people, highlighting the importance of information officers and journalists in the regions to spotlight these issues. Kazondu noted that regional councillors, lawmakers, and other decision-makers need to be informed about the realities on the ground.Kazondu also mentioned that a single information officer in a region effectively represents that region to the rest of the country, which is a considerable responsibility. Nampa News Editor Maggy Thomas explained that the training covered the news agency's mandate and editorial vision, editorial policies of objectivity, accuracy, speed, and fairness, as well as writing conventions, elements of news, and story structure. Additional sessions addressed photo caption writing, content creation for social media platforms, and mobile journalism basics using smartphones for audio and video clips.Thomas stated that integrating regional information officers into Nampa's pipeline would enhance localised coverage across the country's 14 regions. Information officer Aron Mushaukwa from the Zambezi Region, who currently contributes stories to New Era and the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), emphasized the importance of accuracy and speed as his key takeaways from the training. He hopes this initiative will enable stories from his regio n to reach both international and local audiences.Information officer Malaki Anashombo from the Oshana Region noted that they previously wrote in the style used by New Era and NBC but will now adopt Nampa's writing conventions. Anashombo believes that Nampa's broader audience will help him better cover the Oshana Region.