#defyhatenow South Sudan through its 211 Check project in partnership with Junub Open Space’s Hagiga Wahid supported by Code for Africa concluded a two-day workshop on rumour tracking and fact-checking Tuesday this week.

The workshop with the primary goal of increasing participants’ understanding of fact-checking and rumour tracking, exchanging best practices and lessons learnt on working with rumours and misleading information in Juba, South Sudan and beyond brought together a total of 14 participants from both 211 Check Desk and Hagiga Wahid Community Ambassadors at #defyhatenow South Sudan and Junub Open Space organizations.

“I expected to share knowledge and gain skills on how to counter rumours,” Santino Lau said at the start of the workshop. “I hope to gain capacity and more skills of fact-checking and verifying information,” Nivella Emmanuel said.

During the workshop, participants had presentations on rumours and rumour tracking, introduction to fact-checking and verification. They participated in group exercises on how to address different types of rumours.

“I also took them through how they can differentiate between facts, opinions and different news sources. They also were introduced to basic fact-checking tools like the reverse image search and how to verify social media profiles,” Emmanuel Bida Thomas, 211 Check project coordinator and workshop facilitator said.

Though most participants agreed that the training partly met their expectations, they needed more time on hands-on skills in doing the reverse image search, verifying videos and social media profiles.

“The workshop has exposed me to several ways of tackling and fact-checking rumours,” a participant said.

The workshop is part of 211 Check’s incubation programme with Code for Africa under the Africa Fact-checking Alliance