With the first of three online photojournalism training courses that kicks off on Monday, July 20, the Asian Center for Journalism (ACFJ) journeys beyond Asia and onto Africa. The courses form part of the media training programme called Twenty Ten, a project of the World Press Photo seeking to prepare African journalists for the coverage of the 2010 World Cup at Johannesburg, South Africa, next year. The project's goal is to equip them to produce compelling African football-related stories for Africans during the World Cup.

ACFJ is honored to have been asked by World Press Photo, the Amsterdam-based global platform for photojournalism, to offer the photojournalism component of Twenty Ten. We take this as an affirmation of the success of our own programmes.

The three photojournalism courses refer to three teams of photojournalists who have been grouped according to language and photojournalism skills. There are two English-speaking teams and one French-speaking team, for a total of 36 photojournalists. The former come from Nigeria, Liberia, South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Angola, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Egypt, South Africa, Zambia. The French-speaking participants come from Senegal, Maurice, Ivory Coast, Cameroun, Congo, Togo and Burkina Faso.

Alex Baluyut and Jimmy Domingo are the main lecturers for the English-speaking teams. A guest lecturer, Markel Redondo, will have the French-speaking team. Markel is a Spanish photographer with a master's degree in photography. Dave J. Clark is the programme leader.

Following ACFJ's trademark distance learning programme, the courses are hybrid courses. They meet online for about 8 weeks in Blackboard's online learning classrooms. One-week onsite courses will take place in Ghana, Nigeria and Burkina Faso for the respective teams.

The courses end on Oct 13; the reality of the coverage begins for the training participants.