About 16 journalists from across Ghana and its neighboring country, Ivory Coast, have received editorial skills and capacity building to critically report on gender-sensitive stories and inequality.
Dubbed ‘Equal Voices’, the project seeks to eliminate gender inequalities and stereotypes while ensuring women’s promotion at every level of responsibility in the two countries.
This is an initiative by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) and the Canal France International (CFI).
From eight media organisations – four each in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, the journalists were equipped with practical story development skills and guidance to produce and publish more gender-sensitive reports.
They were also trained with the necessary skills and knowledge to engage in gender-sensitive journalism and contribute to a more balanced and inclusive representation in the media.
Speaking on the opening day of the five-day workshop, the Programmes Coordinator at the MFWA, Abigail Larbi stressed the essentiality of the training in addressing gender issues.
“As we speak there is a similar training for selected journalists in Ivory Coast. This training is expected to enhance the capabilities of selected journalists from the eight project media organisations in both countries in the theories and foundations of gender/women’s rights as well as analyzing the representation of women in media towards addressing gender stereotypes,” she said.
The two-year project would see media managers from the selected media organisations participating in a series of Peer-to-peer learning; Coaching and Mentorship sessions where they will be trained to be more gender-aware.
Executive Director of Women, Media and Change, Dr Charity Binka, a facilitator of the training, believes that for the media to accurately produce coverage that is complete and diverse, stories should be told through the eyes of all genders.
“Journalists can help to change attitudes by portraying women and men as equally valued and diverse, rather than re-enforcing problematic gender-based stereotypes. Gender must be considered at all levels of news production: from the editorial department where decisions are made about what stories to cover, to the field where stories are gathered,” she said.
Participants have been charged to use gender-sensitive language which challenges unconscious assumptions people have about gender roles in society.
Lecturer at the Department of Communications, University of Ghana, Dr Aurelia Ayisi said to be truly equal, women and men must be seen and heard.
This means eliminating stereotypical language that misrepresents or excludes every gender, especially women.
Including the two journalists and News Editor of Luv FM under the Kumasi unit of the Multimedia Group, three other media organizations in Ghana are participating in the project.
The other media outlets include the Ashanti Regional Directorate of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Justice in the Northern region, and AI Radio in the Upper East region.
Concurrently, the 5-day training was run for eight Ivorian journalists from November 20 to 24 2023.
In September 2023, the MFWA and CFI officially launched the Equal Voices project in Accra.