OUR MISSION
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
Our vision is a world where women and girls are in control of their rights and possess the tools to make informed decisions about their own well-being.
OUR GOALS
We transform how Africa’s most remotely located women and girls receive, use, and share information to advance Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 and 5b.
SDG 5: “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.”
SDG 5.b: “Enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women.”
We reduce inequalities by supporting people from lower socio-economic levels to attend school and find employment.
SDG 10: “Reduced Inequalities within and among countries.”
SDG 10.1: “By 2030, progressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40 per cent of the population at a rate higher than the national average.”
We promote peace and ensure everyone gets justice by providing information on civic education to people who would otherwise not have access. We also support victims of SGBV through the judicial process.
SDG 16: “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.”
We build partnerships and networks of NGOs and CSOs to tackle issues more thoroughly and effectively as a team.
SDG 17: “Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development.”
WHAT WE DO
- We employ and support professional female journalists based three provinces of Sierra Leone: Kenema, Waterloo and Makeni.
- Our journalists produce and distribute educational podcasts, providing a popular way for women’s voices to be heard.
- We produce several types of audio podcasts – our most popular is “Mamie and Omo” a humorous and informative weekly drama series.
- Our archive holds 1,000+ free podcasts in four local languages (Krio, Mende, Temne, Mandingo).
- We have trained 75 field staff in over 100 rural communities that 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 earliest stages.
- We now reach over 115,000 direct listeners, 40% of whom are men, and our numbers are growing.
HOW WE DO IT
We build efficient podcast-sharing networks to advance women’s rights.
Our network-building works like this:
- Each of our journalists uses a Mobile Production Unit (MPU) provided by the project to create regular podcasts.
- She establishes five Listening Centers in the farthest areas of her region, each of which is managed by a Focal Point who is paid a stipend. Focal Points are provided with equipment for playing our podcasts to groups and sharing via Bluetooth. Our broadcasting then spreads quickly into rural areas.
- Each Focal Point has two Youth Advocates and two Town Criers who receive the podcasts and distribute them further into the rural areas surrounding the Listening Centers, travelling up to 20km!
- During Covid-19, there are restrictions on public gatherings, and while our journalists continue to rely on Focal Points it is now our Youth Advocates and Town Criers who are most important for distribution.
- They often engage in discussion after playing our podcasts. When listeners suggest topics, we follow up with podcasts.
- For distribution, multiple channels are best, including peer-to-peer Bluetooth and WhatsApp sharing, MMW Listening Centers, outreach by MMW Youth Advocates, village to village broadcasts by Town Criers, and national and community radio.
