First PR Conference held in Tamale

Mr. Albert Don Chebe, PRO of MIDA.

The first-ever Northern Public Relations Conference and Training Workshop has taken place in Tamale, with a call on Public Relations practitioners to rise up and work to achieve the goals and aspirations of their institutions and organisations towards the development of the region.

The practitioners have also been told that for any development agenda to succeed in the North, people outside the area must first be helped to change their negative perceptions about the place, its institutions, and organisations.

The two-day conference was organised by NU IMAGE Communications, a media communications company established in 2009, purposely to use the power of the media to positively project the potentials that abound in the three Northern Regions of Ghana, in collaboration with the Institute of Public Relations (IPR).

In his welcome address, Mr. David Babayara, Director of NU IMAGE Communications Company, said the conference was aimed at creating opportunities for practitioners living in the North to also showcase to the rest of the country what they were capable of doing.

He hinted that his outfit was coming out with new programmes which would be produced and shown on national television, which would be the first ever TV magazine programme dubbed 'Northern TV aims at highlighting life and lifestyle of the people in the three Northern Regions.' It would also help bring to light some of the hidden treasures left unattended to.

Opening the conference, the Northern Regional Minister, Mr. Moses Bukari Mabengba, observed that the practice of Public Relations, as a profession in the North of Ghana, leaves much to be desired, due to the fact that most people in the region do not really see the significant role the profession plays towards the overall growth and development of institutions and the people.

He said most PR functions within most organisations are either relegated to the background or completely forgotten. Even in situations where PR officers are appointed in some institutions, such officers are not usually properly placed within the set-up of those institutions.

Mr. Mabengba was therefore, hopeful that with the presence of the Institute of Public Relations in the Northern Region, the PR officers would take advantage of it to upgrade themselves to maximise the fortunes of their organisations, and the region at large.

Renowned communicators like Mr. Joseph Emmanuel Allotey Papoe, Major Albert Don-Chebe (rtd), Mr. Ibrahim Awal, and Dr. Margret Amoakohene were the resource persons.