Public Relations Office
The mandate of the Police PRO and Spokesman is to update the public on Rwanda Police achievements in safeguarding people and property as per Article 2 Law 09/2000 on the establishment of Rwanda National Police.
The office of Public Relations is headed by the Police Spokesman, and it fulfills its mandate through accounting for police activities to the community, ensure sustained, factual and current information-sharing with the citizens; cultivate amicable relations between the police and the population, and also cultivate open collaboration between the police and other public institutions.
The office has a duty to advise the Commissioner General on the matters that affect the police’s image on a daily basis, such as planning, development and implementation of PR strategies. It liaises with colleagues and key stakeholders, answers enquiries from media, individuals and other organizations, often via telephone and email.
The office of the PR does research, writes and distributes press releases to targeted media, and collates and analyzes media coverage of police issues.
The PRO is also mandated to write and edit in-house magazines, case studies, speeches, articles and annual reports, prepare and supervise the production of publicity brochures, handouts, direct mail leaflets, promotional videos, photographs, films and multimedia programmes, devise and coordinate photo opportunities and organize events including press conferences, exhibitions, open days and press tours.
Maintaining and updating information on the organization’s website furthers his mandate, as well as sourcing and managing sponsorship opportunities. The office fosters community relations through events such as open days and through involvement in community initiatives, and manages the PR aspect of a potential crisis situation.
The office has six desks capped by the Police Spokesman. Other desks are the media and news desk, public relations, police magazine, secretariat, police website and police library.
The office has registered some achievements that are in line with what it is expected to do in its day-to-day operations. These include accountability to the population on progress in fighting crime, participation in awareness campaigns on traffic, judicial crimes and violence against children and women, responding to questions of local and international media on hot issues on security matters and collaborating with the Community Policing Directorate to increase cooperation between the police and the population.
The office has also managed to monitor local and International media, advocated for RNP, prepared material for Police Website and created a database of pictures of Police activities.
It has, however, faced a few challenges that range from insufficient audio and video equipment, insufficient equipment to prepare the Police Magazine such as recorders, computers and cameras. It could also do with some means of transport and more skilled personnel to handle its work and reach the targets.
The PRO office hopes to have at least three talk shows on radios per week, one show on television and an article in The New Times and Imvaho Nshya per week.
More to that it plans to compile news on a daily basis, get more facilities for the library like purchasing more books. In addition to this the PR office would wish to improve the Police website and Magazine, and for this it needs more and better qualified personnel for writing, filming and photography, so that overall there will be better coverage of the works of the RNP.
The office of the PR does research, writes and distributes press releases to targeted media, and collates and analyzes media coverage of police issues. The office of the PR makes use of the Facebook and twitter as a quickest means of communication so as to serve better.
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