Our Mission is to connect women and girls—those beyond the reach of traditional media– with information and inspiration that enables them to be healthy, live safely, and fully enjoy their rights.
Our vision is a world where woman and girls are in control of their rights and possess the tools to make informed decisions about their own well-being.
- Established and led by women, Media Matters for Women (MMW) is a non-profit media organization that empowers women and girls in rural Africa.
- We amplify female journalist’s voices by building trusted information networks for the toughest-to-reach communities in Africa.
- The grassroots element of our work is key to our work – we first engage with local leaders to ensure uptake by the communities we serve.
- We are reaching communities where others don’t go.
Our Accomplishments
- We employ and support professional female journalists based in all five provinces of Sierra Leone.
- Our journalists provide a popular way for women’s voices to be heard.
- We produce and distribute several types of audio podcasts – our most popular is “Mamie and Omo,” a humorous and informative weekly drama series.
- Our archive (link to podcasts) holds 650+ free podcasts in four local languages (Krio, Mende, Temne, Mandingo).
- We have trained 75 field staff in the over 100 rural communities we serve.
- Walking miles into the most rural areas, our Town Criers and Youth Advocates broadcast our content and are agents of change in these communities.
- As with the Ebola outbreak in 2014-15 we quickly adapted our operations to COVID-19 challenges and were able to deliver critical information in the earliers stages.
- We now reached over 115,000 direct listeners, 40% of whom are men, and our numbers are growing.
- Florence Sesay, our Project Coordinator in Sierra Leone, was chosen for a Business Council for Peace (Bpeace) “Women Forward” award in 2020. Julienne Lusenge, our partner in the Democratic Republic of Congo, received the 2018 International Women’s Rights Award.
“Our community used to have huge numbers of teenage pregnancies before we started playing and sharing MMW programmes with Bluetooth. Now this has changed. The programmes have changed the way parents and girls think about this. Parents encourage their girls to go to school and stay there.” Dennis Conteh Makeni – Sebhora Chiefdom
“Sierra Leone has a rich resource in its professional and innovative women journalists. I have been lucky to work with many of them. This important and much needed new programme will be a success.” George Bennett, Former Head of the BBC African Service
MMW at a Glance
This booklet provides a quick glimpse of MMW’s progress since it was created in 2011.
Mamie and Omo Booklet
This booklet provides a snapshot of one of our showcase programs, a dynamic drama series called “Mamie and Omo.”
Wamama Tujenge Booklet
This booklet provides an overview of our project in Kinshasa, working in the DRC.
Brochure Wamama Tujenge
Cette brochure donne un aperçu de notre projet à Kinshasa, travaillant en RDC.