The Gender Fellowship program for emerging journalists, which h2n implements in collaboration with Midia Lab, provides mentorship and growth opportunities for young female journalists. The program selects, supports, accompanies, and mentors a group of journalists through a structured nine-month professional development process spent mostly with participating media outlets.
“With this program, we aim to strengthen the position of female journalists in the media sector and ultimately produce content that helps bring about social change,” says Sheila Mafuiane, Media Specialist at h2n, who is in charge of the initiative.
The mentoring provided by the h2n and Midia Lab teams provides program participants with journalism training and exposure to of a wide range of gender equality and women’s empowerment issues, which also become a central focus of much of their reporting. “We are in an early phase, but hope to add significant depth and quality to reporting on gender issues over time,” explains Sheila.
The program is part of the Asas project, which is funded by Canada and aims to strengthen gender equality and empowerment of women; addresses attitudes, norms, behaviors and gender stereotypes; and strengthens the voices of women and girls through advocacy, media and communication.