2017 Leadership and story projects

Aware of the multiple challenges and responsibilities female journalists grapple with on daily basis, Ene Osang, set out to train female interns and journalists in the Abuja office of Blueprint Newspaper, the media house where she works, on female journalists survival tips.

Ene organised a mini-workshop on 10 November 2017 in the newsroom. The field nature of journalists’ work notwithstanding, 5 female journalists… Read

Ifeoma Okeke, is the Head, Aviation Desk at BusinessDay Newspaper. She felt concerned that interns posted to her media organisation learn so little before returning to school, so she took up a female intern to train on how to write news and feature stories on the aviation sector, aside starting a quarterly staff training in October.

She also organised a training for members of staff. “I brought together over 35 staff of BusinessDay to attend the training. Read

Ayodele Olofintuade discovered that many young girls are ignorant of their rights and this makes them easy targets of abuses. Ayodele therefore opted to mentor 11 female students from Olunde Community Secondary School, Ibadan, on child rights, sexual abuse and child protection as enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution. Assisted by two resource persons, one of which is a teacher in the school… Read

Having undergone the FRLP training, Faith Yahaya, a reporter with the Abuja Bureau of The Nation Newspaper said she realised that leaders are meant to identify problems and then solve them. This realisation was the birthing of several journalism-related solutions for Faith.

First, Faith noticed that older Editorial staffs in her organisation experienced much difficulty… Read

From her pinnacle as an editor with Daily Trust Newspaper, Amina Alhassan was concerned that the interns with her media outfit were merely warming the seats and not profitably engaged. In response, she decided to focus her leadership project on training the interns.

She allotted two hours to train the interns three times per week for one month. Although, it was not convenient, given that other tasks begged … Read

Turned down several times by media houses, many female journalism job seekers have lost the courage to stand by their passion in journalism. Nafisat Abdulkarim, an independent journalist made a move to bridge the gap for freelance female reporter, through her leadership project.

Spanning a period of two months, Nafisat worked with six female master’s students of Mass Communication in Bayero University… Read

As a crime editor with The New Telegraph Juliana Francis is not unaware of the alarming increase in the number of youths going into crime. Worried that many youths go into crime without knowing the full implication on their future, she committed herself to educate the youth on the effects on their lives and the society.

For two months, she coordinated some fora to speak directly with the youth. During the period, she met with undergraduate… Read

Brought to the consciousness of the gender imbalance in the media, following the Female Reporters’ Leadership Programme, Godiya Daniel of NTA Yola took it upon herself to encourage female participation and involvement in newsroom leadership.

Her leadership project had the broad scope of mentoring prospective female leaders in the newsroom, addressing the issue of gender… Read

Following the three-day training Olufunke Fayemi, a radio broadcaster with Voice of Nigeria (VON), realised that many female journalists in her organisation are complacent on the job.  Now orientated to lead the way for other journalists, she organised a five-week leadership training for female journalists in her organisation. The training entitled, ‘Female Journalistic Boost’, drew participants from the various departments of Voice of Nigeria… Read

As if they were formally orientated to do so, interns in the Adamawa-based television station, ATV Yola, are seen, but not heard in the newsroom. They appear to be left to themselves. Maria Albert Zirra, a reporter with the station, focused on addressing this and many more with her leadership project.

Maria organised a roundtable on 26 October, 2017 for the budding journalists, to initiate them into the practice of journalism, clear their doubts about the profession, heighten their… Read

As crucial as the time of internship is, it is wasted for most students. Abosede Omoruyi, dared to ensure a productive stay for the interns in her Core TV milieu. She sought to integrate interns and youth corps members in her workplace as active participants in the newsroom, by making them contribute daily to newsgathering. Among other things, she made them tweet at least two informative pieces every day, and post stories on Core Hub, Core TV’s Facebook page. Read

“For almost a decade that I have worked in the radio house, I have seen students come in for internship; and instead of being engaged, most of them become errand girls or sit around and do nothing”, says Bunmi Yekini, one of the fellows.

“I have had cause to interact with some of them, and I realised that they are willing to learn”, she added… Read

Realising from the pilot exposure of the Female Reporters’ Leadership Programme, that the Nigerian media is not also gender balanced, Evelyn Okakwu, a Judiciary Correspondent with Premium Times, chose to heed the call to challenge the norm, beginning from her media house.

Evelyn consulted with her publisher and managing editor, to advocate conscious increase in women’s voices in news stories… Read

Nkechi Isaac of Leadership Newspaper committed herself to producing and disseminating Woman 360^o_, an online newsletter that focuses on women issues. With Woman 360^o, Nkechi sensitises female reporters and women in general about women rights and privileges, so that they can contribute their quota to the development of their homes and the society, without fear… Read