Gender Links has established Media Centres of Excellence (COEs) in gender mainstreaming as a follow up to gender and media research, advocacy, training and policy work that GL has been conducting in SADC since its establishment in 2001.
Following the extensive work with the media, GL is going beyond the six stage gender policy process (buy in, situation analysis, inception workshop to develop a policy and action plan drafting, adoption, monitoring and evaluation) to include on-the-job training; self monitoring and sharing of good practices at the Gender and Media Summit. Since 2011, GL has been working with 100 newsrooms in the SADC region to ensure that they have at least 30% women sources in news content and that women are equally represented in all areas and at all levels of decision-making within media houses. Click here to download the proportion of women sources in SADC Media. The on-the-job training will revolve around the ten key areas of the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development. Click here for the COE concept note. Click here for the manual, Making every voice count: Reporting Southern Africa a compendium to the handbook, Making Every Voice Count: A Handbook for Gender in the Media Centres of Excellence.
To kick start its thematic training workshops, GL conducted training for journalists on covering gender based violence which coincided with the 2011 16 Days of activism campaign. Training workshops took place in Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mauritius, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania and Zambia.