‘Mama Sosa’ empowers young women through journalism

Thu, 27 Apr 2017 11:42:55 +0000

 

By JUSTINA MULENGA

THE ‘‘Mama Sosa’’ project is all about empowering young women through training and mentoring them on citizen journalism through the use of information and technology, says Mama Sosa executive director, Zenzo Aaron Simbao.

Mr Simbao said the overall objective of ‘‘Mama Sosa’’  was to empower young women in Kanyama to have a voice through the promotion of citizen journalism and use of up to date technology.

He said the project was intended to build capacity of young women in Kanyama to report issues affecting their daily lives.

“At the same time the project aims to raise awareness, within the Kanyama constituency and outside, on the position of women in society.

Mr Simbao said that the ‘‘Mama Sosa’’ project was an extension of the ‘‘Vichitika’’ Youth Active Citizen training program implemented by House of Consciousness (HoC) in May 2014 as a component of the ‘‘Media Junction’’ project which was funded by Free Press Unlimited through the Zambia Innovation Fund.

“Through the training, young people were able to go in their communities and gather information about issues affecting young people in those communities,” he said.

He said that the programme was re-adapted and merged with the ‘‘Mobile Communities Zimbabwe’’, a concept also supported by Free Press Unlimited and focusing on training young women.

He said the ‘‘Vichitika’’ programme was re-named ‘‘Mama Sosa’’ and a pilot was implemented between April and August 2015.

The project was funded by the European Union through the ‘‘Speak up Zambia’’ project implemented by Free Press Unlimited, Alliance for Community and House of Consciousness Limited in 2016.

“The programme works with young women from three different townships – John Laing, Kanyama and Chibolya currently,” he said.

He said that Mama Sosa has been enrolling up to 50 young women every year since the project started.

“We provide free training to these young women and pay them for the work they do as most of them do not have formal skills,” he said.

One of the beneficiaries of the project, 20-year-old Beatrice Ngoma said that she joined the project in June 2016 and that it has helped her so much to reach her dream career, journalism.

“Mama Sosa has helped me so much because I have always wanted to be a journalist, and this project is a great ladder to where I want to be, a professional journalist,” she said.

Mr Simbao said that the programme highlighted the generation of local content, the efficient and targeted delivery of information in English and local languages to mainstream media, and internet social networks for sustainable development.

He said that trainees at Mama Sosa are taught basic skills of journalism through the use of new tools and mobile applications such as Storymaker, Viva Video and Wave Pad.

Mr Simbao said that the applications are loaded on to the smart phones that the participants receive for reporting purposes of the course.

“We are hopeful that our project extends to other parts of the country to empower young women speak out on issues affecting them in the communities and country as a whole,” he said.

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