In view of the need to increase and improve the reportage of girls and women in the Nigerian media, the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism has launched the “Report Women!” project. Report Women! is a collaborative effort between the Royal Netherlands Embassy and the Centre planned to focus on major issues of access and abuse, ranging from education, to health care, to violence, and early marriage, among others. The project seeks to use the tool of investigative reporting to highlight these issues, even as it examines the role of religion in the girl child and woman’s rights trajectory.
The Report Women! project started in May 2014 with a one-month media monitoring of the reportage of girls and women in seven Nigerian newspapers. It will continue with a meeting of stakeholders on Thursday 7 August 2014 in Lagos. Thereafter, investigative journalism trainings aimed at honing participants’ skills on the reportage of girls and women issues will hold in Abuja, Ekiti, and Cross River States. This will be followed by the administration of small grants to shortlisted journalists to investigate and write issue-based stories on girls and women. The project will also include a Report Women award, the production of an investigative documentary, and the publication of a reporter’s resource guide on reporting girls and women.
The project, which is expected to run till April 2015, will have online campaign on the Centre’s social media platforms especially its Twitter handle – twitter.com/WSoyinkaCentre using the hashtag #ReportWomen.
Report Women! is a modest attempt towards promoting girls’ and women’s rights as human rights, and ensuring a more gender-balanced society through the media.
Signed: Motunrayo Alaka, Centre Coordinator
