Select employees of the MHSD, the housing arm of the BARMM, are now equipped with useful knowledge and skills in video editing, newswriting, and graphics designing after they participated in the three-day training conducted by the Information and Communications Section (ICS) of the Ministry on July 27-29, 2022.

The activity was held at the Conference Room of the MHSD Regional Office, Bangsamoro Government Center, Cotabato City, and with budget allocation from the Ministry’s 2022 regular funds.

Salembai A. Abdullah, Head of the ICS, said the training is aimed at enhancing the competencies of the ICS staff and that of the other participants representing the different divisions and sections of the Ministry who can help in ensuring more effective information dissemination.

“Inspired by our #WorkingWithExcellenceAndPerfection, we must keep enhancing our knowledge and skills as we continue serving the Bangsamoro and this training is one of the different ways for us to improve,” Abdullah encouraged the participants.

The activity, engaged the participants into interactive workshops for effective learning particularly aiming to improve the quality of press releases and general infographics prepared and published by the Ministry.

The first day of the activity was led by resource speaker Ferdinandh B. Cabrera, Freelance Multimedia Journalist, from whom the participants learned the basics of video editing using Adobe Premiere and they managed to craft a half-minute output using readymade ministry materials.

The interest of the participants intensified as they learned newswriting techniques and practices the following day, shared by Danilo E. Doguiles, OIC-Regional Head of the Philippine Information Agency (PIA)-Region 12, which enabled them to prepare news articles, three of which were automatically edited by the resource speaker for improvement.

Infographics outputs were then produced by the participants the last day using Adobe After Effects shared and demonstrated by resource speaker Cayetano T. Daquiado, Jr., Graphics Artist from the Department of Agriculture-Regional Field Office 12.

“I was very impressed with our resource speakers and was particularly challenged by our activity on graphics designing using After Effects,” shared Charanie B. Pandi, Planning Officer I, one of the participants.

She thanked the ICS and the resource speakers for the knowledge and skills she gained and looked forward to utilizing them in future MHSD activities, especially those on newswriting and video editing.

Director General Esmael W. Ebrahim officially opened the training program acknowledging the essence of the ICS in building the face and the image of the Ministry and in communicating the ministry’s programs and projects, encouraging the participants to be active throughout the training.