BUJUMBURA March 6th (ABP) – The Ministry of Communication and Media, in collaboration with UNESCO, has been organizing, from March 5 to 7, 2019, a capacity-building workshop for journalists, local correspondents and community radio presenters on gender mainstreaming in radio productions.
The community radio stations concerned by this training are Ijwi ry’umukenyezi, Humuriza FM, Izere, Radio Colombe, CCIB FM +, recalled the Minister in charge of Media, Mr. Frédéric Nahimana, in his opening speech. He added that the UNESCO has also invited other media outlets such as National Radio, Radio Isanganiro, Nderagakura School Radio, Rema FM Radio and Radio Maria.
This training is timely, he said, explaining that it is taking place just a few months before the start of the electoral process expected in 2020 while the capacity building of media personnel is essential to address the electoral deadlines with lucidity, competence and equity.
Minister Nahimana took the opportunity to ask UNESCO and other partners to support the media during the election period. He further noted that the Ministry will soon establish a platform for discussing operational mechanisms on that issue.
He ended by inviting the journalists benefiting from the training to follow the themes that will be developed by the consultants, including the understanding of the notion of gender, the notion of gender and media, the consideration of gender in the National Media Policy, gender and media interactions, gender equality indicators in the media, gender sensitive programming in the media and others.
Ms. Josephine Ntahobari, Bureau Officer at the UNESCO House for the Culture of Peace in Burundi, said that the objective of this training, which comes before the International Women’s Day celebration, is to build the capacity of the target audience, namely journalists and local correspondents of community and local radio stations for the handling of gender-sensitive information. She stated that UNESCO hopes that the beneficiaries of the training will be true agents of change in the deconstruction of gender stereotypes so that they promote a positive and non-stereotypical image of women and men in the media, encourage their writing to adopt policies to promote equality between women and men and to combat gender stereotypes, and tackle, through relevant radio contents, the consequences of gender stereotypes by developing education and awareness in communities on issues such as gender-based violence against women.
