Reposted from Nigeria-AIDS eForum, http://www.nigeria-aids.org

African Women's Media Center to Conduct Campaign to Improve
Healthcare Journalism In Africa

Grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supports
campaign

Dakar, Senegal - The African Women's Media Center today
announced that its parent organization, the International
Women's Media Foundation, has received a $1.5 million,
three-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
to develop a campaign to enhance the quality of healthcare
coverage in the African media with responsible, accurate
and relevant media messages.

The campaign will bring together leaders in the African
media to evaluate the quality of health coverage in Africa
and then devise strategies and actions to raise the quality
of reporting on health issues. It will be conducted through
the African Women's Media Center.

"In this era of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and with the
problems facing most health sectors in African countries,
it is crucial that the media play a key role in
disseminating accurate information," said Emily Nwankwo,
chair of the African Women's Media Center Advisory
Committee. "Only then will the general public become
adequately informed and, ultimately, be able to improve
their quality of life."

"Women in Africa bear much of the burden of healthcare and
of HIV/AIDS," continued Nwankwo. "As a leading women's
center in Africa, the AWMC assumes the responsibility of
equipping women journalists with the skills and knowledge
that will contribute to easing this burden. With the
support that we are privileged to receive from the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation, we can make this a reality."

A priority of the AWMC has been to train women journalists
to report on HIV and AIDS. The center has developed manuals
and resource guides on covering HIV and AIDS and has
trained women journalists in both French- and
English-speaking African countries to report on the
pandemic. The grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation will help the AWMC expand its programs to
include other healthcare issues and train more journalists
to be effective health reporters.

"The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is very pleased to
support this important campaign," said Joe Cerrell, the
foundation's director of public affairs. "Enhancing the
quality of health coverage in Africa will build awareness
of critical health issues and strengthen commitment for
action."

The African Women's Media Center, based in Dakar, Senegal,
was launched in 1997 by the Washington, DC-based
International Women's Media Foundation. The center helps
women in the African media develop skills by sponsoring
training workshops and has been a pioneer in using the
Internet to conduct training. It is guided by a 13-member
advisory committee of African women in the media. For more
information on the AWMC, go to www.awmc.com.

The International Women's Media Foundation was launched in
1990 with a mission to strengthen the role of women in the
news media worldwide, based on the belief that no press is
truly free unless women share an equal voice.
The IWMF network is more than 1,500 women in the media in
more than 130 countries worldwide. For more information on
the IWMF, go to www.iwmf.org.

Kathleen Currie
Email: [email protected]