Malawi Institute of Journalism FM

When MIJ was established over ten years ago, it did not believe in Gender mainstreaming in all its processes, strategies and programmes. MIJ did not have specific Radio programmes that would address Gender issues. In our presentation, and production, the use of gender-insensitive words for instance was the order of the day. In short, the word Gender did not exist in our vocabulary. Perhaps that is because, most of the broadcasting staff had not gone through some formal trainings in gender Reporting. But after the coming in of Gender Links, some four to five years ago, things started changing for the better. This is because they started providing trainings to the broadcasting staff on how they would treat gender issues in their programming. Since then, things have never been the same again because MIJ now has specific programmes to address gender issues in the country include Gender ku Malawi. As that is not enough, women have been employed, empowered or promoted to work in key leadership positions. No wonder, three out of five key positions at MIJ FM are now being held by women. These are positions of Executive Director (Dalitso Nkunika, Station Manager (Roselyn Makhambera) as well as that of Course Manager (Evelyn Pasanje). On Editorial Issues, most challenging tasks, like production of some programmes that were deemed challenging like production of Good Morning Malawi and manning of Night shifts are no longer issues. All this because of vigorous In-house campaigns that were aimed at ensuring that women are empowered to do what men do.

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