WHERE WE WORK
Media Matters for Women works across Sierra Leone, focusing on regions where women and girls experience significant barriers to accessing education, health, and livelihood services. Our journalists are located in Makeni, Bombali and Kenema, from where they broadcast information to these and nearby communities.
Media Matters for Women works in rural communities throughout Sierra Leone. Our journalists broadcast their podcasts with the help of dozens of field staff.
Our Reach Across Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone’s 10-year civil war (1991-2002), left entrenched trauma throughout the country, particularly among women and girls who suffered widespread sexual violence and oppression. To this day, there’s intense societal control of women. Members of male secret societies, which have a strong standing, regularly intimidate, attack and kill women.
Media Matters for Women has been working in Sierra Leone since 2013, steadily growing into a strong voice for women and girls, especially those in rural areas. Our projects support an 80-person team of highly dedicated women journalists and field staff, which include town criers and youth advocates, who ensure that our weekly podcasts are produced, distributed, and shared widely to our target audiences.
Information and communication technology remain inaccessible for rural women, who are more removed from the Information Age than the men whose poverty they share. If women cannot access these technologies, they will become further marginalized from their communities and the world.
We develop innovative communication projects delivering life-changing information to thousands of women and girls. Through our network of local field staff, our podcasts are broadcasted throughout the most rural communities that are beyond the reach of the country’s fragile infrastructure. This enables rural women and girls to hear trusted information that provides them with the means and incentive to improve their lives and access their basic rights. Additionally, our programs are aired on 12 community stations in all five provinces of Sierra Leone and on two national radio stations and are available globally through SoundCloud and Afripods.