The 2020 Media Dialogues lasted a period of 7 days and included open discussions on ‘Scientific General Elections – Key issues for journalists’ followed with training sessions on: ‘Fake news and disinformation in times of elections – Fact Checking and verification’ and ‘Upholding independent journalism in scientific elections – principles of effective elections reporting’ held on Monday 7th September, 2020, in Gulu district. Over 30 participants attended.
Round table discussion that will discuss issues about safety for journalists’ online, offline and at their workplaces and find ways of addressing the existing challenges. This is part of an ongoing project to ensure that clear mechanisms are put in place for safety for journalist especially female journalists across the country.
What are the Media Roundtables about?
Media roundtables are open discussions about safety for female journalists between media managers, editors, reporters and security officials.Conducted by Media Focus on Africa in partnership with UMWA, media roundtables are intended to identify key issues about safety and come up with practical solutions that can be implemented immediately to minimize threats that female journalists are exposed to as they go about with their professional duties. With information generated from the media round tables, UMWA and Media Focus on Africa Uganda will support state officials, other actors and media to promote safety for female journalists in Uganda
Context
While safety for all journalists is an issue of concern, UNESCO has recently reported a rise in deaths of female journalists while on duty. Locally female journalists attest to various challenges that put them at risk online and offline including cyber bullying, hacking, sexual harassment and brutality by security organs. Therefore there is need for a concerted effort to engage different stakeholders to identify the key issues and agree on workable solutions to address them. Results from a situation analysis on the safety for female journalists done by UMWA in partnership with Media Focus on Africa will form a basis for this discussion as we seek to find a realistic solution to the safety challenges that are uniquely faced by women journalists.
What next?
More awareness about the issues and commitment to address them for example in-house policy to ensure female journalists work in a favourable and secure environment.
The One-minute aimed at empowering youths in refugee settlements as well as their counterparts in the host communities with skills and knowledge in film production, media and communication. The skills will prepare refugee youths and youths in host communities to be able to tell their own stories and stand out beyond the narratives that are often presented in the media.
To enable this move, the youths were given resources to help with their learning and also produce their own films. These included Ipads configured with video editing software. With these, the youths can record and edit video and audio footage. These Ipads, among other resources, will be left available to the youths even after the project is over, such that they can carry on producing films to express themselves and tell their stories to the world.
Project One-minute is funded by Creative-Force-Swedish Institute, a Swedish agency engaging other countries in information, culture, public life among others, and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency working on behalf of the Swedish parliament and government to reduce poverty in the world. Project One-minute is facilitated by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.
MFA partnered with The International Budget Partnerships (IBP) to implement a project that involved building the capacity of county based journalists to understand and report effectively on County budgets as well as report on local government spending so as to ensure it is transparent and improving the lives of County residents. Over the course of three years and covering seven counties namely Taita Taveta, Nyandarua, Busia, Kisumu, Narok, Kitui and Baringo, MFA also organized county roundtable discussions intended to bring together players from the county executive, county assembly, civil society organizations, the media and the public to discuss the roles of these players in the county budget process and how they can all work together for the success of the counties. The project was funded by FORD Foundation and The National Endowment for Democracy.
The Uungwana Initiave is a values, attitude and behavioral change campaign that is the brainchild of Ken Njiru. The Uungwana Initiative rests on three pillars namely, Jifahamu (or know yourself), Jiweze (take control of yourself) and Jitolee (give yourself to yourself first, then to the community and the world).
MFA assisted in the development of communication strategy for behavioral changes (morals and values) in collaboration with Ken Njiru at no cost. MFA prepared TV infomercials for the Uungwana initiative. Following this strategic imperative, MFA supported the development of messages aimed at encouraging good national norms and social values under the Uungwana Initiative. This initiative was seeking to promote mutual respect in Kenyan society and called on citizens to move from mediocrity. This support was rendered to Uungwana Resource Institute and included supplementing the production costs of Public Service Announcements (PSA’s) on uraia, utu, responsibility, politeness, trustworthiness, courage and justice. These PSAs aired on radio and television.
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