PSAf conducts media training on women participation in leadership in Zambia

Lusaka, 10 April 2017

Panos Institute Southern Africa (PSAf), with support from the Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation (Hivos Southern Africa) will be conducting a media training on women participation in leadership. The media training will be held in Lusaka on 11^th and 12^th April, bringing together print and electronic media practitioners from across Zambia.

The training is part of the Women Empowered for Leadership Project which PSAf is implementing in Zambia. The initiative is motivated by the reality that the media play a critical role in the construction of public belief and attitudes, thereby formulating public opinions on various issues. Due to the power of the media in influencing public opinion, negative media coverage of women negatively influences public opinion about women, their profile and capabilities, thereby undermining their opportunity to equal participation in leadership and other productive spaces. For the media to effectively play this role, they need to be equipped with the right skills and expertise to enable them to produce content that would stimulate debate and influence positive attitudes.

In efforts to champion women empowerment and women participation in leadership, the impact of negative media coverage of women on women empowerment should not be ignored. When the media churns out negative narratives about women, the public opinion forms negative attitudes towards women, question their credibility and eventually deny them an opportunity to advance.

The proposed media training will therefore address the negative reporting of women by sensitising the media on the harms of negative coverage, raising their awareness on the values of women participation in leadership, and exploring ways in which the media can positively contribute to promoting women participation in leadership.

The training will achieve the following specific objectives:

1. Sensitize journalists on the importance of positive coverage of women in advancing socio-economic development;
2. Mobilize the media to proactively positively profile women leaders;
3. Engage journalists in the coverage of WE4L initiative by NGOCC, ZNWL, KUPES and YWCA.

After the training, PSAf will support interested journalists to produce in-depth content on women empowerment and women’s participation in leadership. The ultimate outcome of the training and the fellowships will be media outputs positively profiling women leaders, increased coverage of the work of Hivos WE4L partners, and increased positive reporting that promotes women participation in leadership.

For more information on the Women Empowered for Leadership project, visit http://panos.org.zm/women-empowered-for-leadership-advocating-for-increased-women-participation-in-leadership/