Marko Gideon is a Communication Specialist and expert in development communication. He was a mentee at the UNDP funded
Sustainable Cities Programme from 1998 to 2001 where he was in charge of report
writing and translation from English to Swahili and contributing articles in
the Programme’s quarterly newsletter. He was at the University of Dar es Salaam
from 2001 to 2002 pursuing Postgraduate Diploma in Scientific Computing.
He joined the Media Institute of Southern Africa-Tanzania Chapter as
Information/Research Officer in June 2002, largely responsible for media
monitoring programme, coordinator of media support programme – enhancing media
professionalism and accountability and also coordinator of communication and
publication strategy of the chapter. He received Certificate on Online
Publishing from the Radio Nederland Training Centre, Hilversum, The Netherlands
in 2005.
In October 2002 he became a trans-editor and local correspondent for the Inter
Press Services (IPS) Africa Service, trans-editing at least 30 English stories
into Swahili per month and writing at least one local story per week. In April
2006, his duty was expanded to include trans-editing at least one story per
week from the Emirates News Agency (WAM) - the duty that he undertakes until
to-date. In 2011, he moved from media freedom and freedom of expression advocacy
organization to join Pwani project under Tanzania Coastal Management
Partnership. This conservation project supported financially by USAID and
technically by Coastal Resources Centre of the University of Rhode Island worked
mostly with coastal communities and local government officials at district and
village level to increase communities’ awareness on the management of coastal
environment. As Communication Specialist, Gideon was responsible for design and
production of communication materials for awareness rising. The materials
included brochures, fact sheets, booklets, posters, folders and t-shirts. He
was also responsible for writing articles on newspapers contained information
on achievements and challenges of coastal management in the project area. He
worked with Pangani Community Radio to produce a weekly radio programme on
integrated approach of coastal management called people, health and environment
(PHE). He produced success stories for USAID publication and also oversaw the
partners’ compliance of branding and marking policies of USAID.
The closure of Pwani project in 2013 led him to join the Global conservation
organization, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Tanzania Office as one of the
Communication/Awareness Officers of the organization, mostly working under
Marine Programme of WWF Tanzania. Under the programme, he led the
implementation of its communication strategy. One of the remarkable jobs was
the coordination of the production of community participatory video statements
on dynamite fishing in Temeke, video on VICOBA and Beach Management Units
successes and was a regular contributor of marine updates into the Global
Marine Updates newsletter produced by WWF International Marine Unit in
Switzerland. He produced annual calendar of the programme carried photos and
messages that promoted collaborative marine resources management and were
sensitive to coastal communities’ culture and faiths. He was also a regular
contributor of environment articles in the Swahili daily newspaper, Habari Leo.