SISTERSPEAK237 Upskills Journalists in Gender and Disability Inclusive Reporting

“We often get statistics of hospitals destroyed, people killed, shops burnt down, but the human face of the crisis is it is something still lacking”

Opening the session on August 11th, 2022, at the IYA Foundation Complex in Buea, the Ambassador through a video address to participants, was upbeat that the 2-day intensive workshop will yield fruits to the benefit of the affected anglophone regions.

“The Swiss Embassy is very delighted to have funded this project. We believe it will go a long way to shine the light on the disturbing under reported issues in the Northwest and Southwest Cameroon” says HE Strub.

“We often get statistics of hospitals destroyed, people killed, shops burnt down, but the human face of the crisis is it is something still lacking” added Comfort Mussa, Founder of SISTERSPEAK237.

The reporters, editors and media managers were schooled on modules like Language style or diction, angling of stories relating to disabilities, Underrated Gender issues just to name but these, by experts from varied fields. Elvis Ndi Tsembom is Publisher of online blog, Oberver237. He says the new reporting skills acquired at the workshop will be momentous in his professional life henceforth.

“I was very shocked with the survey about our coverage of the crisis without factoring in people with disabilities given that, 15 percent of them are affected in the crisis. i really think that after this, there are indept stories we are going to do. More people are shot and amputated. We also need to tell their stories”. says Elvis Ndi.

Journalists were divided into various working sessions to reflect and pitch stories in different angles.

SISTERSPEAK237’s Founder, Comfort Mussa says, the association is going to accompany reporters by assigning mentors and some budget to enable them to start with atleast 20 stories in this domain for their media organs. SISTERSPEAKS237 created about a decade ago, is reputed for mainstreaming issues that are peculiar with Gender and Disability.