EDITORIAL: WSCIJ’s impactful female reporters programme

On Thursday, June 9, 2022,  the forth cohort of the fellows of the Female Reporters Leadership Programme (FRLP) by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) was inducted in Lagos.

They were inducted after participating in months of rigorous training and mentorship, and implementing story and leadership projects, under the 2021 edition of the fellowship which focused on Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) with the support from the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), now Open Society Foundation Africa.

With their induction, the 21 female reporters joined the initial 53 fellows to make 74 fellows since the inception of the fellowship in 2017 and the Report Women programme since 2014.

We commend WSCIJ for the FRLP which has  added to it’s Report Women Programme  to address the poor representation of women to men in leadership in the news and newsrooms.

Based on the impact programme as attested to by the participants, the capacity of the female journalists have been enhanced and they have produced major reports that have addressed the usually missing gender perspectives and women issues.

Additionally, they have implemented leadership programmes that have demonstrated their immense ability to take up top positions in the media If given the opportunity.

Their reports have won top media awards, some have been promoted to top positions, some have moved on to new jobs and others have launched their own media organisations.

The FRLP is a very good example of how to be intentional in addressing the problem of gender inequality in the media and getting the desired results. We acknowledge the able leadership for the project implemention provided by the Executive Director of WSCIJ, Mrs. Motunrayo Alaka who has also initiated other unique capacity development projects for the benefits of journalists in Nigeria.

We urge WSCIJ to ensure the continuation of the FRLP annually to provide more female journalists the opportunity to benefit from the immense trainings and resources offered by the programme.

There may be need to consider increasing the number of participants considering the high number of applicants for the 2021 edition; 146 applications from five countries—Nigeria, and from Spain, Uganda, The Gambia and Kenya.

We commend the funders of the programme in the last four years and urge them and others to continue funding this programme that has proved to be worthy of their support.

The fellows should sustain their leadership projects beyond the fellowship period to empower other female journalists who may not not be selected for the programme.