Around the world, women are far less likely to be seen on conventional or digital media streams.
According to a UN Women study, women comprise only 24% of the subjects we read about in the news or see/hear on media streams. In a country like Pakistan, where multitudes of stigmas and taboos come attached to females working in the media industry, this number drops significantly.
To curb this lack of female representation in media and to empower novice female journalists, GNMI conducted the Women in Media Mentorship Program, in collaboration with the International Federation of Journalists.
The program was implemented to enhance and support women’s leadership development in Pakistan’s media industry, to support women in journalism in creating media new initiatives and innovations, and to support women as activists, unionists, and decision-makers in journalist representative bodies.
Multiple training and mentoring sessions were put into helping 03 women journalists develop new digital media initiatives which included a YouTube channel, a Facebook-based podcast, and a website blog. Training sessions were conducted by digital media expert Marjan Arbab, while the task of mentoring was entrusted to seasoned journalist, Bushra Iqbal.
Through a series of post-training giveback sessions, the trained women journalists passed the knowledge and skills learned through the program to 15 additional novice journalists. This helped create a ripple effect to increase the impact of the program.