One of our journalism placements in Cape Coast, Central Press Newspaper, has grown very successfully since Projects Abroad’s involvement. Here is a description from their staff to best tell you how your experience working here would be like!

Your role here as a volunteer is that of an intern at Central Press Newspaper. You will begin by shadowing professional journalists, learning from them and hopefully gaining an insight into the field.

Volunteers’ responsibilities will depend on previous experience, as well as enthusiasm and level of initiative. However, to begin with you must view yourself as an intern with a learning role. The more you prove your capacities and initiative, the more responsibilities you are likely to get. You are expected to dress ‘smart’ and take your role seriously to have the best local response to your work and interactions.

Volunteers will be assigned to gather stories from the local communities, analyse and report on these stories, and educate the public. They will work for 7 hours every week day, starting at 8 a.m. and finishing at 5 p.m. Most of the time the volunteers go out five times a week to get some stories. Five volunteers work here at the same time and share articles.

The Central Press newspaper permits volunteers to go to many regions and write different types of stories, and also have regional correspondents who report on some projects. As a volunteer you have the opportunity to write on Business, Sport, Earth etc.

One of our past volunteer created centralpressnewspaper.blogspot.com, a link where we regularly post articles written by our staff and volunteers. Anyone in the world can keep up with what we write! For now, our office is shared but we are looking for a permanent office.

Useful equipment you may bring with you include a digital camera, a recorder, note books and a laptop. It is really well-recommended to bring your equipment with you. Most of the time we publish volunteers’ pictures when they take some.

Flexibility, on both sides, is the key to working at most Projects Abroad placements. As long as you are prepared to work hard and do the best you can, no one will insist on you doing something you are not happy about.