Women In Media Network (WIMN)
The Women in Media Network (WIMN) is the Trust most recent network comprising of 34 highly experienced journalists from 15 countries across Africa. A key focus of the network will be to challenge the current perceptions and mindsets about Africa’s women and children and how they are portrayed in the media. We believe that through balanced storytelling we will be able to shape a new reality – one that reflects more nuanced stories, told in the way that women want and deserve their stories to be told.
Advisory Board
A WIMN Advisory Board was established to provide strategic insight and help drive change across the continent’s media landscape. Represented on the Board are some of Africa’s leading media influencers as well as global health and education specialists.
WIMN Board Chairperson
Bronwyn Nielsen has been with CNBC Africa since its launch in 2007. As one of the first faces to join the channel, Nielsen comes with over fourteen years in the African broadcasting industry.
Africa Business News (ABN) appointed Bronwyn Nielsen as the executive director to the group in 2012. Her role of executive director involves setting the content agenda for all the companies within the ABN Group (this includes CNBC Africa, Forbes Africa – ABN Publishing, ABN Pictures, ABN Digital and ABN Productions), as well as driving the group’s strategic growth opportunities.
Susan Makore is CEO of AB Communications (Pvt) Limited. She was appointed to her current role in September 2013. Previously managing director of Mighty Movies, Makore is one of Zimbabwe’s leading media figures with extensive experience in broadcasting. She is a former lecturer with the University of Zimbabwe’s Media and Communication postgraduate and Masters programmes
Mia Malan is the health editor of the Mail & Guardian and heads up the health journalism centre, Bhekisisa. The centre runs critical thinking forums on health issues and health journalism trainings. Mia started reporting on health when she landed her first job at the SABC’s Eastern Cape office in 1995.
Obinna Anyadike is editor-at-Large of IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks), the global news service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. IRIN delivers more than 200 reports and news articles a month “from the frontlines of humanitarian action” to more than three million online readers. IRIN was established in 1995 in response to the gap in humanitarian reporting exposed by the Rwandan genocide. The reports serve as a primary source for news organizations such as Reuters, the BBC and CNN. They are also used directly in humanitarian advocacy, planning, and policy development.
WIMN Board Deputy Chairperson
Tom Mshindi is the editor-in-chief of the Nation Group in East Africa with direct responsibilities for the group’s editorial portfolio across all print, broadcasting and digital platforms.
Mr Mshindi has both editorial and commercial experiences having served in the positions of managing director at Nation Newspapers Division and Ugandan publication Monitor and managing editor of the Daily Nation. He also held the position of group managing director and chief executive officer at Standard Media Group.
John Allen currently assists in editing and managing Africa’s biggest news website, allAfrica.com. He became a journalist straight out of school at 18, joining The Star, Johannesburg, where his reporting included political trials, education and the churches. After 11 years and a short spell with the SA Press Association, he became a full-time official of a journalists’ union where he served as president for five years.
Since January 2000, Diana Senghor has been the Director of the Panos Institute of West Africa, an independent international institution, and a member of the Panos Institute Network, based in Dakar. Previously she was founder and director of the West Africa Program of the Panos Institute in Paris.
Diana Senghor has also been Editor-in-Chief of a number of West African magazines, such as Family and Development, and Living in Another Way, as well as an Assistant in Anthropology at the Cheik Anta Diop University in Dakar.
Dr Venance Konan is a prominent journalist and writer. He was appointed thethe Director General of the state news group Fraternité Matin in Abidjan in May 2011. He studied law at both the University of Abidjan and the University of Nice. His career is full of work at prominent Ivorian papers such as the Ivur’Soir, which he was part of the creation as well as editor of, and L’Aurore, where he served as both designer and editor.
Konan worked as Head of Communications at the National Assembly of Cote d’Ivoire but returned to journalism. As writer, Konan has written for many publications such as Charlie Hebdo and RFI. He has published several books including ‘Edem Kodjo, un homme, un destin’ and ‘Les prisonniers de la haine’. His awards include the Grand black African literary prize in 2012 for his Biography of Edem Kodjo, former Secretary General of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and former Prime Minister of Togo Edem Kodjo.
Director, International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity, Chief of Staff , UN Special Envoy on Global Education
Justin van Fleet is also the Chief of Staff to the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education, Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He serves on the Advisory Board of the Global Business Coalition for Education and works with the UK children’s charity, Theirworld, founded by Sarah Brown. He was previously a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Universal Education in Washington, D.C. where his research focused on corporate social investments and philanthropy for global education. He graduated with a PhD from the University of Maryland in international education policy and holds a Master’s degree from Harvard University in the same fi eld.
Lars Grønseth is senior advisor on communication and advocacy in the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation’s (Norad) Department for Global Health, Education and Research.
In 2007 he was engaged for Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg of Norway’s eff ort for women’s and children’s health through the Global Campaign for the Health MDGs, and the Network of Global Leaders. Since 2010 he has been actively involved in advocacy for the UN Secretary-General’s Every Woman, Every Child initiative and the Global Strategy for Women and Children’s Health. He was the editor of the UN Secretary General’s MDG Advocacy Group 2014 report. Lars is the chair of the Steering Committee of the UN Girls Education Initiative (UNGEI), alternate to the Board of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH) and member of the Women Deliver Advisory Group.
Women in Media Network Champions
The Women in Media Network has selected champions that will use their passion, experience, circle of influence and voice to assist in the building and growing the vision and profile of the network. They will act as the “voices” of the Network members in various fora to help promote awareness of the new narrative of women and children.
They will assist in, among other duties, identifying training opportunities to help empower members to write a new narrative of women and children in an affirming way.
The Trust supports and mobilises civil society networks on issues of ending child marriage, ending violence against children, ending female genital mutilation and promoting children’s rights, to carry out advocacy and action across Africa. Special focus is placed on Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia where child marriage continues to be a problem largely driven by poverty, gender inequality, harmful traditional practices, conflict, low levels of literacy, limited opportunities for girls and weak or non-existent protective and preventive legal frameworks.
Education is a fundamental right for all children, which is also a vehicle for social, economic and political transformation in communities, countries and the African continent at large. Recent studies indicate a lack of progress in some of the critical commitments aimed at improving education quality, access, retention and achievement, particularly for girls. In most African countries, girls may face barriers to learning, especially when they reach post-primary levels of education. By implementing multi-dimensional approaches to education which includes core education, personal development, life skills and economic competencies, the Trust partners with funding partners, governments, civil societies and the private sector to improve education access.
The Nutrition and Reproductive, Maternal, New-born, Child and Adolescent Health and Nutrition, (RMNCAH+N) of the Children’s Rights and Development Programme aims at promoting the Global Strategy for women, children and adolescents’ health within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda. The strategy emphasises on the importance of effective country leadership as a common factor across countries making progress in improving the health of women, children and adolescents.
Through its Early Childhood Development (ECD) plan, The Trust will seek to put into action the new science and evidence Report that was presented by Lancet Series on Good and early development – the right of every child. This will be achieved by mobilising like-minded partners to contribute in the new science and evidence to reach all young children with ECD. The Trust’s goal is to be a catalyst for doing things differently, in particular, to rid fragmentation and lack of coordination across ECD sectors. In response to evidence showing the importance of political will in turning the tide against the current poor access and quality of ECD. Even before conception, starting with a mother’s health and social economic conditions, the early years of a child’s life form a fundamental foundation that determines whether a child will survive and thrive optimally.