Media Awards and Summit Spark Wide Interest

Over 160 people from the region and several observers from across the globe will participate in the first Southern African Gender and Media Awards and Summit in Johannesburg from 12-14 September.

Over 160 people from the region and several observers from across the globe will participate in the first Southern African Gender and Media Awards and Summit in Johannesburg from 12-14 September.

Mail and Guardian editor, Ferial Haffajee, will give the keynote address at the multi-media award presentation and formal opening on the evening of 12 September. The competition attracted close to 100 print, television, radio and photography entries with stories ranging from men running day care centres to daughters being sold for debt.

Africa director for Inter Press Service and chair of the judges panel, Farai Samhungu, described the entries as “a resounding testimony to the progress that is being made in Southern Africa towards presenting gender issues in ways that spark debate and make for more professional, robust journalism.”

The summit, that is being convened by Gender Links and the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), will feature 12 country reports and over 25 case studies of media practice, training, monitoring and advocacy following the ground breaking Gender and Media Baseline Study two years ago. This showed that on average women constitute 17 percent of news sources and are portrayed in a limited number of roles, most often as victims of violence or as beauty queens. The study showed that gender as an issue hardly features in mainstream coverage.

Participants include MISA regional and country offices, the Gender and Media Networks established in seven countries by Gender Links, representatives of the Southern African Editors Forum, media women’s associations, media trainers, practitioners and award winners. A key outcome will be the launch of a regional gender and media network made up of all these groups.

Highlights of the packed three day programme include:
• The launch of the directory of women’s sources by Mauritian Minister of Women’s Rights Arianne Navarre at a jazz evening hosted by Kaya FM on the evening of 13 September.
• Sessions on current gender and media issues, including gender and images; elections; information technology; culture, custom and tradition. Seychelles Minister of Health Patrick Pillay, a single parent and the patron on the gender and media network in Seychelles, will talk about constructions of masculinity in the media.

• Talks by African and international gender and media experts including Esther Kanaimba, Chair of the Federation of African Media Women; Margaret Sentamu of the Ugandan Media Women’s Association; Margaret Gallagher, the internationally renowned author of “Gender Setting”; Ammu Joseph of the Network of Women in the Media in India and Gifti Nadi from the International Federation of Media Women.
• Kristina Stainton, a community radio trainer from New Zealand who was involved in the production of the award winning film, Whale Riders, about gender and tradition in the Maori community, will share her experiences as an indigenous woman working in the media at an informal event on the evening of 14 September called “Sharing Voices”.

The overall theme of the summit is “Making every voice count.”