by Empowerhouse / Birgitte Jallov

16 women working with community radio to strengthen the voices and lives of women in their area

Kanchan K. Malik, Community Media and Women Researcher, India

Kachan K. Malik (Ph.D) is a university professor at the University of Hyderabad and is a Faculty Fellow with the ‘UNESCO Chair on Community Media’, there, where she unfolds her work in support of community media in India and in South Asia with a particular focus on the importance of having women at the stations in all roles and functions.

Kanchan says she is a researcher, learning from the powerful people building community media where her journeys take her.

For over two and a half decades, Kanchan K. Malik’s academic interests and endeavours have been in Community and Alternative Media; Women and Community Media; Journalism Studies; and Media Ethics. She has worked with national and international research projects and published scholarly papers and chapters on media interventions by non-governmental organisations for empowerment at the grassroots level. Her research has also contributed to policy advocacy efforts for community radio in India.

Read more here: https://empowerhouse.dk/kanchan-k-malik-india/

EMPOWERHOUSE launches its contribution to the 16-day campaign by sharing 16 women’s community radio stories: unfolding how each broadcaster has been seeing positive change for women and girls – working intensely to eliminate violence against women and girls.

by Empowerhouse / Birgitte Jallov

16 women working with community radio to strengthen the voices and lives of women in their area

Caroline is a professor (PhD) of radio, researcher, networker–and beyond and above all–a feminist activist. Since she joined ‘Women’s Airwaves’ in the 1980s, she has worked to turn her professional and social engagement real by strengthening women and women’s voices with a focus on ensuring space, justice and empowerment for and of women.

Fem FM – an 8-day radio licence in 1992 – co-created by Caroline and Trish Caverly, was planned for a year, housed in a borrowed 4-storey building, filled with the 200 women (two hundred women, Caroline insists) who had taken holidays or in other ways made the dream of a lifetime come true: UK’s first all women’s radio station.

Read more here: https://empowerhouse.dk/rose-haji-mwalimu-duplicate-3494…/

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EMPOWERHOUSE lanuches its contribution to the 16-day campaign by sharing 16 women’s community radio stories: unfolding how each broadcaster has been seeing positive change for women and girls – working intensely to eliminate violence against women and girls.

by Empowerhouse / Birgitte Jallov

16 women working with community radio to strengthen the voices and lives of women in their area

Jubiel M. Zulu, Radio Kwietu, Zambia

Jubiel is an award-winning journalist and media and communication specialist. Now working as a District Information Officer in Zambia’s Eastern Province. Jubiel said there is so much basic information that people do not have access to. One example of her work as a District Information Officer (DIO) in Chadiza district is an article where she tells about fistula, a terrible, life-changing condition suffered by no less than 25% of Zambia’s women

Jubiel also worked in Kwithu FM, in the capital Lusaka, for ten years. There, she integrated issues of importance to women and women’s lives in the general programming: political, economic, social, and cultural.

Jubiel has a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication and Public Relations from Cavendishi University, and she is Vice President of the Zambia Institute of Independent Media Alliance, a ZAMWA (Zambia Association of Women in the Media) board member and has won both international and national awards for her journalism.

Read more here: https://empowerhouse.dk/jubiel-m-zulu/

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EMPOWERHOUSE lanuches its contribution to the 16-day campaign by sharing 16 women’s community radio stories: unfolding how each broadcaster has been seeing positive change for women and girls – working intensely to eliminate violence against women and girls.

The International Association of Women Journalists in Radio and Television (IAWRT) – Philippines launched its recent publication entitled “What To Do: A Guide to Understanding Attacks Against Women Journalists” last November 25, 2023 at the UP Hotel, Diliman, Quezon City.

This guide is intended to be used by women journalists in the Philippines to understand and address threats they commonly face. Data and practical tips included in this guide were lifted from training, interviews, and consultations of IAWRT Philippines with experts in the field.

Journalist Lady Ann Salem, who was arrested on International Human Rights Day in 2020 and detained for almost three months, said the manual is a handy and practical guide for her fellow truthtellers as they find themselves in difficult situations.

“These situations are things they used to just report about but now also find themselves in, with the increasing attacks against journalists through traditional means and now also social media and lawfare and the continuing impunity for crimes against them,” Salem said.

Salem, who is also the communications officer of the international board of IAWRT, said that during her arrest, “I saw how the stories I used to write, report or edit happened to me, in a checklist-like fashion. And my mind raced and protested at all my rights that the police violated then but I could not do anything about it because my life was literally in their hands.”

“It was a point that I think all my journalists’ safety trainings reached their limit – for what is a journalist to do amid 20 armed police in your home after they planted guns and explosives and are about to put you in jail. But it was also then that I knew that these safety trainings have helped me a lot up until that point. So innovations like this paralegal manual are always a welcome effort from journalists to give and offer to other journalists,” said Salem.

The manual was written and published as part of the Digital Safe House and Collaboration Platform for Women Journalists in the Philippines project of IAWRT Philippines, through its engagement with the International Media Support.

Limited print copies of the manual will soon be available. To get a digital copy, head on to https://bit.ly/What-To-Do-Digital.

by Empowerhouse / Birgitte Jallov

16 women working with community radio to strengthen the voices and lives of women in their area

Siphathisiwe Ncube, Zimbabwe, Radio Ntepe-Manama, Gwanda

Siphathisiwe has worked with Ntepe-Manama Community Radio based in Gwanda, Matabeleland South , Zimbabwe for 10 years.

In Sipathisiwe’s reality it used to be seen as normal that women were exposed to violence. They were surprised and empowered by the station sharing information about their human rights – also in this area?

Since 2013 the community has been organising, training and advocating for access to get licenses.

The station finally got its licence and sending permission in 2022 as one of the first community radios to go on air in Zimbabwe. During the almost 10 year period prior to this, the community brought out community news and information via whats app, facebook and twitter.

As Siphathisiwe says in the interview, the station is based in the deep rural area of Matabeleland South where there used to be no or very little reliable local information, and where people had difficulty getting other news as well. The Ntepe Manama Community Radio has all along taken upon itself to make up for this – and grateful now to finally be on air. The more than 20.000 active listeners bears witness to this fact. But listen in – there is a lot more!

Read more here: https://empowerhouse.dk/sphatiziwe/

EMPOWERHOUSE lanuches its contribution to the 16-day campaign by sharing 16 women’s community radio stories: unfolding how each broadcaster has been seeing positive change for women and girls – working intensely to eliminate violence against women and girls.