Sango Malamu Institutional profile

Sango Malamu acts in its best

During the last recruitment, more opportunities were given to women. One of them has been appointed assistant of the General Manager and the other three women in the administration. On the other hand, two men have been recruited during the same period. Concerning promotions, equality of opportunity was respected: one man has been promoted to chief of the broadcasting studio and one woman to assistant director.

Sango Malamu Studios (SSM) was the first religious radio in the DRC. It attracted its audience through religious programming. In the beginning of its existence, SSM only had preaching and educative programmes, but not news. To respond to the news requirement of its growing public, it has introduced news programmes on television as well as on radio. It was then that SSM was obliged office increase its staff in order to maintain two desks. In reality, Sango Malamu only has one desk, since it is the same people who work for both television and radio. According to the lastest at the institution data, 30% of Sango Malamu workers are women.

We noticed that women are in all the services of SSM. “During the last recruitment, chances were given more to women than to men. Though the recruitment staff is essentially composed of men, one woman has been appointed as the assistant of the general manager, and the other three women in the administration, whereas two men have been recruited in the same period. According to the latest data concerning the promotion of personnel, gender balance was respected; one man was promoted to chief of studio, and one woman chief register,” noted Mrs Angèle Mpaka and Mr Marien Nlemvo. Before being promoted, they were all technicianS.

At Sango Malamu, women are encouraged to go forward in their work. “The General Manager himself advised me to study journalism. When I was employed at Sango Malamu, I was a cashier, now I have a journalism degree and I am the editor of Sango Malamu”, says Angèle Mpaka. The staff of the film department at Sango Malamu are lead by a woman. She manages seven people. There are four women and three men. For the past two years, SSM has had a commission of all women working for Sango Malamu. Their representative is always invited to programmes aiming at women’s capacity building.

News content has been improved, thanks to the organisation waking up to the reality of gender awareness after the publication of different monitoring results on gender and media in the DRC. “We make an effort to make men and women talk about different subjects concerning public life. On the occasion of the 8th march celebration, the Minister of Gender, Family and Children applauded us, saying and we have gotten women and men’s opinions in our news”, explains Marien. Each editor at SSM has the obligation of adhering to this principle. Everybody works with the purpose of making themselves tow the line and apply the principle of gender balance in news sources.

The big difficulty in the application of this principle of equity is that most women do not want to speak through the media because of the cultural beliefs. “We are a little bit limited because of this attitude, but it does not discourage us.”