
A strong, fearless and effective media, where talent is recognised and rewarded regardless of gender. That's the goal of She Leads Media: Bettina Fellowship' - a network-building programme for women working in journalism and media in East Africa, delivered in partnership with Baraza Media Lab.
Initially run as a pilot called The Bettina Fund in 2021, the scaled-up rollout of this trail-blazing project was announced at the Africa Media Festival in Nairobi by Caro Kriel, Chief Executive of Thomson Foundation, and Christine Mungai, Curator of Baraza Media Lab.
The programme was devised in honour of Bettina Peters, Thomson Foundation's late development director, who died in 2020 and spent much of her life championing women's leadership in media.
Building on the success of the pilot programme, She Leads Media: Bettina Fellowship will start rolling out later in 2023 over a three-year period. It will provide training and mentoring to women working in different areas of media - from the traditional legacy platforms of print and broadcast, to digital start-ups. The goal is to empower them to strive for senior roles in their fields, shape agendas, grown women audiences, and build a sustainable and influential network in their country, and globally.
We are committed to supporting women in media leadership
Christine Mungai, Curator, Baraza Media Lab
-- Play
-- --
Proven to work Together with Baraza Media Lab, we ran the Bettina Fund pilot in Kenya for three months in 2021. Twelve mentees were chosen from more than 500 applications for the inaugural fellowship. The women chosen came from across Kenya, including Nakuru, Kisumu and Kakuma. Their experience ranged from legacy media to digital start-ups and entrepreneurial publications.
During the three-month pilot, the mentees had the opportunity to study fields relevant to their work, have weekly one-to-one sessions with their mentors, and participate in webinars with other female leaders in their field.
We had a really successful cohort last time and we are taking some of those learnings so that this time round we have a bigger and better programme, says Christine Mungai, Curator, Baraza Media Lab.
A powerful collaboration Baraza Media Lab, are headquartered in Nairobi. They are embedded in the Kenyan media landscape with an entrepreneurial team and strong links to local journalism.
Together were able to ensure the programme prepares leaders for the news industry's future, and its present. It will be the source of long term, vital knowledge on what approaches work when it comes to getting women into senior editorial positions to grow diverse, inclusive and engaged audiences with content on critical issues that matter for all across the region - from climate resilience to food security, migration to education, health to wealth.
A network and especially mentorship is very valuable for women especially as they make their way through newsrooms, says Caro Kriel, Chief Executive of Thomson Foundation.
The impact
-- Play
-- --
In their immediate evaluation of the pilot programme, mentees and mentors rated it exceptionally high, with both saying they had gained from the relationships.
One year after they embarked on the programme, we asked the mentees what long-term impact the fellowship had on their professional lives. The project has left a big impression on those who participated.
The most satisfying achievement I gained from the programme is that I have been able to champion human rights and dignity for all at my station, especially the women. I am supporting a safe working environment for women, especially those new in the industry. I have also taken the front line in mentoring them.
Florence Chepkorir, Radio News Editor at Egerton University Radio (Nakuru)
The training for me had both personal and professional impact. On a personal level, it gave me confidence as a woman in the media space so that I now know my voice does count in the noisy newsroom. Then on a professional level, I took on a new role as Head of Entertainment programmes on NTV Kenya. Lastly, courtesy of the training, I launched a magazine show that I had procrastinated on for the longest time, and I'm proud to say it's one of the leading shows in the country.
Margaret Wanjiku, Broadcast journalist, Nation Media Group.
As a woman in the media and especially in a leadership position, you get to hear a lot of you can't do that, and that is not possible. Thus, being part of the first cohort for the Bettina Fund was very refreshing. Listening to other women who have gone through the same struggles and how they have overcome them increased my resilience. The skills I gained from the training and mentorship led Mtoto News to develop new products, including a children's magazine written by children, which has gained traction, and we are getting amazing feedback from parents and children. I hope it will continue, and we will get more women in the program.
Jennifer Kaberi, Founder, Mtoto News
Related work
Women in media: Confronting the confidence gap
Marium Chaudhry discusses the lack of women in leadership positions in media.
The Bettina Fund: Transforming women's careers
Looking at the impact of the inaugural Bettina Fund programme.
When diversity in newsrooms is not enough
Luba Kassova reflects on why she believes women in newsrooms are counted but not included in decision making.
Explore our projects across the globe
More from Thomson
22/05/2023
The Thomson Foundation is proud to unveil a pioneering free, online training course designed to help newsrooms address a defining issue of the modern age: the e...
12/05/2023
Sixty years after it was founded Thomson Foundation - now joined by the Berlin based Thomson Media, continues to innovate. Its blended approach to life-long lea...
09/05/2023
Journalists from Western Balkans countries and T rkiye are invited to submit their investigative stories for the EU Award for Investigative Journalism 2023.
On...
06/05/2023
The onslaught of false news against real news is unprecedented. In the Middle East, an alarming trend of people doubting published news is overwhelming, Mohamm...
04/05/2023
This article is written by Vitalie Cojocari, a journalist and broadcaster with Euronews in Romania. He is a mentor for the Thomson Media project EU support for ...
26/04/2023
Three months after Thomson Foundation offered six young journalists a once-in-a-lifetime chance', its world-class mentoring programme Connect 6' is re...
25/04/2023
Despite reports to the contrary, radio isn't dead. In fact, not only has it been revived but its combined with its close cousins, the podcast and the long r...
25/03/2023
To increase women's participation; these four words, written down in four seconds, in a proposal can take months, if not years to achieve.
Especially, wh...
24/03/2023
When I started out as an investigative journalist, there were few practising journalists in Kenya to learn from or manuals that I could read to sharpen my skill...
23/03/2023
Journalists in the Western Balkans have been given access to free resources and training in their own languages thanks to a unique platform launched by Thomson ...
22/03/2023
One million refugees have been welcomed into Germany since the Russian invasion who aside from being far from home have lost contact with their community and in...
21/03/2023
Millions of people in Tajikistan have read, watched and listened to an extraordinary social media campaign which has clearly shown the population's hunger f...
08/03/2023
It's August in Pakistan and much of the country is underwater. Catastrophic flooding has killed hundreds, left millions homeless and destroyed infrastructur...
15/02/2023
A strong, fearless and effective media, where talent is recognised and rewarded regardless of gender. That's the goal of She Leads Media: Bettina Fellowshi...
07/02/2023
Our pioneering WhatsApp course is leading the way in training journalists and citizens to spot misinformation and disinformation in Sudan - a country targeted b...
03/02/2023
The finale of the third Valley Voices project saw women journalists and writers gain confidence in writing about some of the more controversial topics facing wo...
23/01/2023
Take six of the brightest young journalists and connect them to six of the best in the industry and you have the recipe for Connect 6', a new, world-class ...
10/01/2023
You're a journalist and news breaks that Pele, arguably the greatest footballer the world has ever known, has died. A colleague in your newsroom is assigned...
14/12/2022
Two former winners of the Vodacom Young Journalist of the Year award in South Africa have finally been treated to their prize of an all-expenses paid trip to Lo...
08/12/2022
Sabin Agha is a Pakistan-based documentary filmmaker, multimedia journalist and a blogger. She has been teaching women journalists at Tribal News Network (TNN)...
29/11/2022
Yashraj Sharma is the interim editor of the online news portal of The Kashmir Walla. He is the winner of the Thomson Foundation's Young Journalist Award 202...
25/11/2022
Yashraj Sharma is the interim editor of the online news portal of The Kashmir Walla. He is a finalist in Thomson Foundation's Young Journalist Award 2022.
...
24/11/2022
Jyoti Yadav is a journalist from New Delhi, working for India's fastest growing news website The Print. She is a finalist in Thomson Foundation's Young ...
23/11/2022
Carlos Ra l Kestler is a 23-year-old journalist from Guatemala. He is a finalist in Thomson Foundation's Young Journalist Award 2022.
Every time a tyre t...
21/11/2022
One year ago, I woke up and was surprised to find out the great news that I was selected as the winner of Thomson Foundations Young Journalist Award 2021. This ...
07/11/2022
Ewen Macaskill introduces the second in his series of news writing courses for the Thomson Foundation - Advanced Writing: The art of storytelling
Storytelling...
04/11/2022
During a time of war, it's essential that journalists are prepared for any eventuality, however unlikely.
With that in mind, Thomson Foundation has respon...
20/10/2022
It has been tough three weeks for the panel of judges at the UK Foreign Press Association (FPA) who had the unenviable task of selecting three finalists for the...
19/10/2022
Three landmark environmental training courses devised by the Thomson Foundation have been translated into Arabic as part of a major push to guide and inform loc...
28/09/2022
A remarkable number of entries arrived from all over the world for this years Young Journalist Award - Cameroon to Colombia, Ukraine to Uganda and Egypt to Ecua...
12/09/2022
This article is written by Hudaibia Iftikhar, a blogger working in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province of Pakistan. Despite being highly educated, she holds a ...
23/08/2022
Running a media organisation in the Western Balkans (WB) is far from easy. A region beset by instability, corruption with challenges to media freedom which prov...
08/08/2022
A digital learning course on mis and disinformation delivered via the messaging platform WhatsApp has gone viral in Sudan.
The first seven days after publicat...
28/07/2022
Dina or evi is a journalist with the Centre for Investigative Journalism of Serbia (CINS). She has won a number of national and international awards for her w...
01/07/2022
Thomson Foundation is celebrating 60 years of promoting excellence in journalism and to mark the occasion, we're offering six rising stars the chance to con...
24/06/2022
Hello, can you hear me? The zoom screen springs to life and the responses quickly follow.
Yes, we can. Good morning . The greetings come from Kenya, Nigeri...
20/06/2022
The crisis in Ukraine has again focused world attention on the plight of refugees and mass migration. It has also challenged journalists to report on the issue ...
10/05/2022
The moment you see your byline next to a story is a magical moment for any journalist. It brings with it a sense of relief, pride and hope that you'll get n...
06/05/2022
Success in our training programmes is measured in many ways but one of the most rewarding is reading or watching powerful stories produced by young journalists ...
25/04/2022
A pioneering band of creatives in Sudan are promoting social change through photography. The Thomson Media training for digital media entrepreneurs formed part ...
31/03/2022
Chemical and biological weapons may be banned but that has not stopped them being used in recent conflicts and for journalists reporting on the war in Ukraine k...
25/01/2022
The look of politics in Gagauzia, the small autonomous territory in southern Moldova, is decidedly male. Just two of the 35 members of local parliament are wome...
13/01/2022
Eleven women who participated in the inaugural Bettina Fund - Women in Media Leadership programme say it will transform their careers as they have gained confid...
18/12/2021
Stories on ecology and corruption, developed with Thomson Media support, are among the best investigations of the year.
By Dima Stoianov, media support expert ...
17/12/2021
Media in minority languages are relatively well developed, but one segment is significantly neglected in the six countries of the Western Balkans - Albania, Bos...
14/12/2021
Award-winning podcasters and journalists from the UK, India, Kenya, Australia and South Africa have joined forces to create what's believed to be the first ...
08/12/2021
The 7th of January 1991 was a big day for me. It was the day I started working as a radio journalist.
As someone who writes for a living, I'm supposed to a...
30/11/2021
PROFILE: Young Journalist Award 2021 winner
It was Kai Hui Wong's persistence in her investigations which led her to reveal abuses of power that convin...
30/11/2021
PROFILE: Young Journalist Award 2021 (environment) winner
It's hard to believe that Monika Mondal only started her journalism career last year at the hei...
17/11/2021
Three journalists - from India, and for the first time, Colombia and Malaysia - are the finalists for the 2021 Thomson Foundation Young Journalist Award, in par...