‘Report Women: Make It Happen’ was the theme of a share-fair amongst
journalists held on Friday 13 March 2015 to commemorate the ‘International
Women’s Day’.
The event was organised by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative
Journalism and its partner the Netherlands Embassy to contribute to improving
the quality, quantum and perhaps impact of reportage on girls and women and to better mainstream gender into news reporting.
The forum brought together journalists and members of non-governmental
organisations to reflect on the challenges facing Nigerian girls and women. The
idea was to build the capacity of participants while lending a voice to the
theme of the 2015 United Nations International Women’s Day – Make It Happen.
At the meeting, five journalists who were commissioned by the Wole
Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism to investigative and publish
stories on girls and women issues ranging from widowhood, to Female Genital
Mutilation and to Human Trafficking, had opportunity to share their experiences
with colleagues.
The journalists, Simon Ateba of The News; Abiose Adams-Adelaja of
International Centre for Investigative Reporting; Tosin Oladosu-Adebowale of
World Pulse; Bamgbose Temiloluwa of Flair Nigeria and Isioma Madike of New
Telegraph are among thirty-two reporters given small grants to do
investigate reports under the report women project which started in 2014.
Participants at the Report Women: Make It Happen share-fair worked
together to highlight strategies to improve and increase the reportage of girls
and women in Nigeria and committed to doing same.
Signed:
Motunrayo Alaka
Centre Coordinator
ABOUT THE REPORT WOMEN! PROJECT
Report Women!, a collaborative effort between the Royal Netherlands
Embassy and the WSCIJ focuses on major issues of access and abuse, ranging from
education, to health care, violence, and early marriage, among others. The
project seeks to use the tool of investigative reporting to highlight these
issues, even as it examines the role of religion in the girl child and woman’s
rights trajectory.
It started in May 2014 with a one-month media monitoring of the
reportage of girls and women in seven Nigerian newspapers. Shortly after, a
stakeholders’ meeting and three investigative journalism trainings aimed at
honing participants’ skills on the reportage of girls and women issues held in
Lagos, Ekiti, Cross River and Abuja. These were followed by the administration
of small grants to 32 journalists who investigated and wrote issue-based
stories on girls and women. Some of these stories are available on probeng.org
an investigative report website facilitated by the WSCIJ.
The Report Women project includes an award, the production of an
investigative documentary, and the publication of a reporter’s resource guide
on reporting girls and women. The project, which is expected to run till May
2015, has an online campaign on the Centre’s social media platforms especially
its Twitter handle – twitter.com/WSoyinkaCentre using
the hashtag #ReportWomen.
Report Women is a modest attempt towards promoting girls’ and women’s
rights as human rights, and ensuring a more gender-balanced society through the
media.
ABOUT WOLE SOYINKA CENTRE FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM
The Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative
Journalism (WSCIJ) is a non-governmental organisation with a vision to
stimulate the emergence of a socially just community defined by the ethics of
inclusion, transparency and accountability through support to journalists. The
Centre is named after Professor Wole Soyinka in recognition of his life-long
work in support of the freedom of expression, freedom to hold opinion and
freedom to impart them without fear or favour and without hindrance or
interference.
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