NAME OF GOOD PRACTICE: RADIO DIALOGUE PRESENTERS NAME:DEBRA MABUNDA/ZENZELE NDEBELE

CATEGORY: MEDIA COE

COUNTRY SADC GENDER PROTOCOL SUMMIT

DATE :22-04-2013

VENUE:INDABA HOTEL-JOHANNESBURG

YOUR LOGO

GENDER EQUALITY BY 2015, YES WE MUST!

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF MEDIA HOUSE

• Location: urban • Type: radio • Circulation: RD estimates

that its listenership is between 130 000-150 000

• Proportion of women sources: 60:40

• How many employees: 10 women , 13 men

• How long has the media house been part of the COE process: Since 2011

GENDER EQUALITY BY 2015, YES WE MUST!

KEY GENDER CHALLENGES IN THE MEDIA HOUSE

• Make reference to institutional and content issues.

• Radio dialogue did not have a gender policy until around 2008 when we participated in Glass Ceilings: Women and Men in Southern Africa Media .

.Without a gender policy it was difficult to implement some of the recommendations until RD worked with Gender links to come up with the gender policy.

RD was the first media organisation in Zimbabwe to have a gender policy.

• In terms of content there were very few women voices.

• Reporters always claimed that women were not willing to speak on issues like politics .

• Even female reports thought the same

GENDER EQUALITY BY 2015, YES WE MUST!

GENDER CHAMPIONS

• Do you have gender champions in your media house

• Yes.

• Who :Zenzele Ndebele

• What position: Production manager.

GENDER EQUALITY BY 2015, YES WE MUST!

GENDER CHAMPIONS

• How do they push the COE process?

• Radio dialogue trains young reporters in all beats and makes sure female reporters are also assigned beats that are traditionally reserved for men like political issues and interviewing the elders.

GENDER EQUALITY BY 2015, YES WE MUST!

HOW HAS THE COE PROCESS CONTRIBUTED TO ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGES?

• Buy in –It has made it easy for journalists to understand the importance of mainstreaming gender as well as identifying relevant topics to report on rather than stereoptyping women.

• Policy interventions-RD follows the gender policy when it comes to content production. The media facilitor monitors the content and encourages staff to incude more women voices.

• Specific practices:

Reporters in the news room have now come up with a data base on women in various sectors to make it easier to get comments from women .

GENDER EQUALITY BY 2015, YES WE MUST!

HOW HAS THE COE PROCESS CONTRIBUTED TO ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGES?

. Examples of gender – specific coverage

• After training RD introduced gender specific programmes called fusion in Ndebele and English .The programmes broadcast twice a week.

• Examples where gender is mainstreamed in coverage In all news bulletins and stories, reporters are encouraged to

get women’s views. • Employment practices RD through its gender policy encourgages equal opportunities

for both men and women including in the Board of Trustees and The General Council.

• Work place practices: RD’s gender policy does not allow the use of sexist language

and negative gender stereotypes among employees and it promotes a friendly working environment.

There is both maternity and paternity leave . Workers on Maternity leave are paid a full salary.

HOW HAS THE COE PROCESS CONTRIBUTED TO ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGES?

• Gender specific programmes:

RD now has gender specific programmes and also encourages reporters to include women voices in all stories and news.

Gender specific events, like women’s day are celebrated with specific coverage.

• Self monitoring:

Reporters are currently being trained to do self monitoring and this should help realise fully the policy on including wowen voices on everyday story done.

Photograph/s showing changes

GENDER EQUALITY BY 2015, YES WE MUST!

HOW IS THE MEDIA HOUSE CONTRIBUTING TOWARDS ACHIEVING THE 28 TARGETS OF THE SADC

PROTOCOL?

GENDER EQUALITY BY 2015, YES WE MUST!

PROTOCOL TARGET COUNCIL ACTIONS

Article 30”Gender in the media RD has Gender policy that will see Gender balance in the work and also a friendly environment for all workers.

RD has introduced gender focused programmes and encourages reporters to include women’s voices in every story they do.

RD is training young female reporters to report on beats like politics that were traditionally male territory.

CHANGING LIVES

• Tell a short story of someone from the media house whose life has changed because of the COE process

Before the COE processes Jessie Dendere one of RD’s senior reporters used to argue that women were not interested in commenting on political issues.

The trainings helped her see the importance of women voices and today she hosts a current affairs programme where she looks at the role of women in politics.

She has also taken a great interest in politcal reporting.

GENDER EQUALITY BY 2015, YES WE MUST!

CHALLENGES TO GENDER MAINSTREAMING

• Please list the main challenges • The major challenge is staff turn over.RD is a

community radio innitiative and journalists use it as a stepping stone. After investing a lot in terms of training, staff move to bigger media houses.

• RD is viewed as an illegal entity by the authorities. This makes it difficult for RD to attract good female journalists as they fear harrassment by the authorities.

• The organisaton’s future cannot be guaranteed due to sustainability challenges and the hostile environment.This does not offer job security and staff leave as soon as they get something more secure.

GENDER EQUALITY BY 2015, YES WE MUST!

WAY FORWARD

• What are the next steps?

• All RD staff to make gender mainstreaming a culture in their day to day lives, both at work and socially.

• RD’s goal is to make sure there is 50-50 representation of man and women at work..

• To encourage other media houses to develop and implement gender policies through training and mentorship

GENDER EQUALITY BY 2015, YES WE MUST!