From COP17 to Rio + 20 for South African community media journalist: Where is the voice of women in Climate change reporting?
Women’sNet and The Media Development & Diversity Agency are proud to present a meerting we are calling ‘The Johannesburg Agreement’, the second phase of a series of workshops to train women journalists from community media (Radio and TV) in the practice of online and mobile citizen journalism in the wake of the COP17 conference and the Climate Change phenomena. The first phase was held in Durban between 28 November and 9 December 2011, a series of activities were facilitated around the COP17 conference, with the aim of empowering women to produce information that offers an alternative to mainstream media coverage. Female journalists working for registered community and small commercial radio stations and television have been invited to participate in The Johannesburg Agreement.
The initiative was developed following the women and media and environment conference organised by the department of environmental affairs in August of 2011 to engage community media with regards to COP17. This conference came twelve years after the adoption of the Kyoto protocol, and was seen as critical milestone to getting parties to sign an agreement that will see lowering of carbon emissions in the world. Our interest as a collective was on telling the story of how climate change affects OUR communities, and in particular women who work on the land and depend on it for their families’ livelihood.
The Johannesburg Agreement will see us once more meeting with our partners from community media across the country to shape and strengthen the Citizen Journalism process of reporting on climate change in our communities. It will be a five day meeting of sharing, of learning on some the challenges that hindered development of content post Durban. We have invited content specialists (some were part of the negotiations at ICC) to explain in detail the complex subject of CLIMATE CHANGE.
We will leave Johannesburg with a plan on how each of the stations will run a programme on environment and bring to life how people are experiencing the changes in the climate and, how they are benefiting from it. Participants will also be trained in using social media to get their voices heard throughout the world, they will be blogging their views on the Women’sNet website, sharing their ideas and insights on Facebook and Twitter.
For more information, like the Facebook page of the Journo's Calabash and follow us on Twitter.
News
Published date:
26 Mar 2012
This report, which presents the 2012 list of countries that are “Enemies of the Internet” and “under surveillance,” updates the report published on 12 March 2011 by Reporters Without Borders.
The last report, released in March 2011 at the climax of the Arab Spring, highlighted the fact that the Internet and social networks have been conclusively established as tools for protest, campaigning and circulating information, and as vehicles for freedom. In the months that followed, repressive regimes responded with tougher measures to what they regarded as unacceptable attempts to “destabilize” their authority. In 2011, netizens were at the heart of the political changes in the Arab world and elsewhere. They tried to resist the imposition of a news and information blackout but paid a high price.
Published date:
26 Mar 2012
The 2012 WDR reflects a conceptual shift in how the World Bank views women's rights, but will the Bank put its conclusions into practice?
The World Bank's 2012 World Development Report: Gender Equality and Development, is 458 pages long. By contrast, the German Development Institute's critique of the World Development Report is a 4 page brief, but these pages have punch.
The gist of the paper is how the World Development Report shows that the Bank now acknowledges that "....social and cultural factors make it difficult for women to participate with equal rights in the social and political life of their societies." This statement isn't groundbreaking in itself, but it shows a sea change in how the World Bank thinks about women's equality.
Published date:
26 Mar 2012
At the same time that we increasingly see the advance of new technologies which facilitate communication and information, such as smartphones, tablets, Twitter and Facebook, in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, the People's Wall has emerged: the extensive outer wall of the building housing newspaper Jornal@Verdade [pt], where the population can write letters and direct reflections to the governing leaders.
It is an original form of communication, whose effectiveness and accessibility are inherent in its very simplicity. In a way, it acts as an authentic ”offline Facebook wall”, as conceived of in the blog Menina do Javali:
The idea of the Wall was to create a permanent and offline space for readers to read (simple) and to comment (simple).
Published date:
26 Mar 2012
The Horn of Africa is one of the least connected regions in the world. Nevertheless, digital media play an important social and political role in Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia (including South-Central Somalia and the northern self-declared independent Republic of Somaliland). This paper shows how the development of the internet, mobile phones, and other new communication technologies have been shaped by conflict and power struggles in these countries.
It addresses some of the puzzles that characterize the media in the region: for example, how similar rates of penetration of media such as the internet and mobile phones have emerged in Somalia, a state which has not had a functioning government for two decades, and in Ethiopia, one of the countries with the most pervasive and centralized political apparatus in Africa.
Published date:
26 Mar 2012
This handbook is a timely, illustrated and easy-to-read guide and resource material for journalists. It evolved primarily out of a desire to equip all journalists with more information and understanding of gender issues in their work. It is addressed to media organisations, professional associations and journalists’ unions seeking to contribute to the goal of gender equality.
Events
Date of event:
16 April 2012 - 18 April 2012
Gender Links is a NGO committed to a region in which women and men are able to participate equally in all aspects of public and private life in accordance with the provisions of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development.
Gender Links is hosting the Third Annual Gender Justice and Local Government Summit from 16-18 April 2012 under the theme ‘365 Days of Collective Local Action to End Gender Violence’ in Johannesburg.
Date of event:
19 April 2012 - 22 April 2012
Transforming Economic Power to Advance Women’s Rights and Justice, the 12th AWID International Forum, will gather up to 2000 women’s rights leaders and activists from around the world from April 19 to 22, 2012 at the Halic Congress Center in Istanbul, Turkey.
Job Opportunities
Application Deadline:
31 Mar 2012
Sonke Gender Justice Network is a NGO that works across Africa to strengthen government, civil society and citizen capacity to support men and boys to take action to promote gender equality, prevent domestic and sexual violence, and reduce the spread and impact of HIV and AIDS.
Sonke Gender Justice seeks to appoint a Deputy Director - Operations, based in Cape Town.
S/he will provide training and guidance to partner organisations to ensure consistent, effective, and timely project finance administration and reporting.
