Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

The Bettina Fund: Transforming women's careers

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 confidence to own their career development paths.

The three-month programme launched in Kenya in September 2021 aims to help women working in the media overcome barriers in newsrooms and navigate an industry that remains dominated by men.

This is achieved through one to one weekly sessions with mentors and a series of webinars with high profile female media managers, entrepreneurs and senior journalists.

I have grown my net-worth, says course participant, Hellen Shikanda, Health and Science Reporter, Nation Media Group. Now, I believe that leaders can be shaped. I have realised sometimes it takes close interaction with a leader to be one.

Diverse recruitment The women participating in the programmes were drawn from different areas of Kenyan media; the traditional legacy platforms of print and broadcast to digital start-ups.

The virtual nature of this programme caused by restrictions due to the pandemic benefitted journalists based outside the capital Nairobi. Travel costs and time often prohibit people travelling for face-to-face training but because every activity had to be done online the foundation was able to recruit participants from across Kenya with all women enjoying access to the same benefits.

In their feedback on the programme, mentees say the weekly sessions with mentors- all distinguished Kenyan women in the media - increased their confidence through improving personal skills and developing leadership competencies.

The webinars and mentor sessions provided a safe space for them to discuss openly their ambitions and provided guidance on how to overcome challenges in the workplace and as media entrepreneurs.

The mentees also completed bespoke e-learning courses developed by the Thomson Foundation.

Networking The programme ticks all the boxes of a programme designed to better equip young journalists with the nitty-gritty needed in their field of practice, says reporter and course participant Hellen Shikanda.

Ms Shikanda's mentor was Pamella Makotsi Sittoni, the first woman to hold the position of executive editor and managing editor of the Daily Nation at the Nation Media Group.

In 2017 she was named the Laureate of the Women in News Editorial Leadership Award for Sub-Saharan Africa by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN-IFRA).

She emphasises the importance of mentoring female journalists as a way of bridging the gender gap in media organisations.

The only way to challenge the gender disparity in media leadership is by creating a pipeline of women journalists with the right skills to take up senior positions, says Ms Sittoni. Through the Bettina Fund mentorship, we hope our colleagues will take the lessons we learned and avoid our mistakes, to get to the top faster and better prepared.

Florence Chepkorir, a news editor from Nakuru - a city north west of Nairobi in the Great Rift Valley; says the mentorship program enriched her professional network and taught her practical skills to advance her career. She now feels more confident to pursue opportunities in the media.

Getting to interact with other women journalists was awesome, she says. It helped me appreciate the fact that I am not the only one facing challenges specific to women in the newsroom. This has helped me put on a brave face, focus and endeavour to achieve the best in my career.

Empowering women in the workplace

The Bettina Fund has been set up by the Thomson Foundation in memory of its Director of Development Bettina Peters who died in 2020. Bettina was a tireless advocate for equality in the media. The aim is to empower women to take on senior roles in media organisations and build a sustainable network of women journalists and media professionals.

For the inaugural programme the foundation teamed up with the Baraza Media Lab, an initiative working to promote a strong and diverse media ecosystem from its collaborative space in Nairobi.

The aim is to extend the programme to include other countries in East Africa and replicate in other regions of the world.

The mentor and mentee relationship

-- Play

-- --

-- Play

-- --

-- Play

-- --

-- Play

-- --

Related content

The Bettina Fund: Empowering women in media

Women in Media: Confronting the confidence gap

When diversity in newsrooms and leadership is not enough

Berna Namata East Africa Programmes Manager

Berna is Thomson Foundations East Africa Programmes Manager. Her main role is in the business development and promotion of our e-learning platform, Journalism Now.

Explore our projects across the globe
LINK: http://www.thomsonfoundation.org/latest/the-bettina-fund-transforming-...
See more stories from thompsonfoundation

More from Thomson

24/11/2023

In the news - media insights for Young Journalist finalists

The three finalists for the Thomson Foundation Young Journalist of the Year 2023 enjoyed an action-packed trip to London which included meeting the Queen, visit...

21/11/2023

Yara El Murr wins Young Journalist Award 2023

Yara El Murr from Lebanon is Thomson Foundation's Young Journalist of the Year 2023. Yara received the honour at the Foreign Press Association Media Award...

17/11/2023

Yashraj Sharma: The 2022 YJA winner on a year of opportunity

Yashraj Sharma has seen big changes in his life since he won the Thomson Foundation Young Journalist Award in 2022. In the run up to the 2023 winner being anno...

10/11/2023

Paris Charter on AI and Journalism unveiled

Thomson Foundation has joined 16 partner organisations to launch the Paris Charter on AI and Journalism'. The first of its kind, the charter defines crucia...

01/11/2023

Zuha Siddiqui, Young Journalist Award finalist 2023

Zuha Siddiqui from Pakistan is a labour and tech reporting fellow for the global non-profit publication Rest of World. She's one of three finalists nominate...

01/11/2023

Jamaima Afridi, Young Journalist Award finalist 2023

Jamaima Afridi is a freelance journalist based in north-west Pakistan on the edge of the Khyber Pass. Her stories focus on injustices faced by women and vulne...

01/11/2023

Yara El Murr, Young Journalist Award finalist 2023

Yara El Murr is a 25-year-old journalist and documentary filmmaker from Lebanon. She is a finalist in Thomson Foundations Young Journalist Award 2023. The awar...

01/11/2023

Announcing the 2023 Young Journalist Award finalists

Young journalists from more than 60 countries entered this years prestigious Thomson Foundation Young Journalist Award 2023. Countries from across Africa, Asia...

26/10/2023

Investigative journalism exposes new scandals

The 2023 EU Award for Investigative Journalism has proven to be an exceptional showcase of talent, diversity and shifting journalistic priorities. More than 20...

16/10/2023

Thomson Foundation announces new trustees

Thomson Foundation is delighted to announce the appointment of two new members to its Board of Trustees - investment expert, author and former financial journal...

12/10/2023

Unique training courses to help create the definitive account of the Ukraine War

Some of the world's leading foreign correspondents and war crimes investigators have contributed to a set of major new training courses for journalists cove...

05/10/2023

Thomson joins Partnership on AI

Thomson Foundation is delighted to be one of five new organisations to join Partnership on AI. Thomson is now one of 114 partner organisations from around the ...

28/09/2023

Shortlist for Young Journalist Award 2023 revealed

An astonishing array of talented journalists from around the world have made it through to the shortlist for the Thomson Foundation Young Journalist Award 2023....

18/09/2023

Thomson Talks: Former Google director to lead Thomson Foundation Thought Leadership events.

Madhav Chinnappa, the former Director of News Ecosystem Development at Google an...

14/09/2023

Strengthening the media s role in promoting democracy

Thomson works with journalists in some of the toughest places in the world. Their work and livelihoods are frequently under threat. Thomson Foundation believes ...

05/09/2023

Disarming disinformation: piloting new proof technology

A pioneering system aimed at preventing the spread of disinformation and creating verifiable content from capture to publication is being road tested in a serie...

15/08/2023

Connect 6: The magic of mentoring

To mark the Thomson Foundation's 60th year of nurturing and training journalists globally, we matched six talented young journalists with six of the best in...

07/08/2023

Backing brave journalism in challenging places long-term

In the autumn of 2022, I was introduced to a young Afghan journalist in London. Zahra Joya had fled Kabul a year before as the Taliban swept through the city. A...

27/07/2023

Award winning inspiration from young journalists

Pursuing independent journalism is more important than ever. Right now, we are not just facing one or two crises. The crises that journalists are facing are not...

05/07/2023

From trainee to trainer: The man who brought Mojo to Sri Lanka

KC Saranga has trained more than 1,000 journalists, students and people in marginalised communities in Sri Lanka on how to tell stories using their mobile phone...

04/07/2023

Top quality entries for EU Investigative Journalism Award

A total of 267 applications from 7 countries, representing 125 media outlets and featuring a diverse group of authors (both individuals and groups), have been s...

03/07/2023

Young Journalist Award 2023 is open for entries

Since 2013 our Young Journalist Award has celebrated the outstanding young talent in the media profession. The award is an opportunity for those brilliant young...

28/06/2023

Transforming cultural journalism in the Western Balkans

A new project is underway in the Western Balkans to transform digital storytelling and engage public audiences with creative and culture-related content. Aroun...

19/06/2023

Reaching the million+ Ukrainian refugees in Germany

Staying informed about everyday life and events in Ukraine is crucially important for the refugees who have fled the war. By April 2023, 1.06 million Ukrai...

14/06/2023

Rwandan journalists awarded funds to support investigations

Equipped with new investigative journalism skills and financial support after recently completing a training programme, 15 Rwandan journalists are empowered to ...

22/05/2023

Unveiling a seminal course on AI ethics in the newsroom

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

60 years: Our alumni s stories

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

Investigative journalism competition Western Balkans and Trkiye

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

Media under siege: how journalists are being silenced.

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

Why Moldova is ahead of Romania in Media freedom

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

Connect 6: The power of mentoring

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

Let's hear it for audio

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

Finding their voice - the women bringing parity to Pakistan's media

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

Rwanda: developing a course for investigative journalists in Rwanda.

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

Journalift: Access all languages

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

Ukraine: collaboration in time of war

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

Building the Resilience and Relevance of independent media

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

Valley Voices: Accessing women s voices

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

She Leads Media: Bettina Fellowship scales up at Africa Media Festival

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

Bad news for false news: how we re countering misinformation in Sudan

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

Valley Voices: Empowering women in rural Pakistan

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

Connect 6: Thomson Foundation launches mentor programme

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

Unique new course on the art of writing news analysis

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

A mobile masterclass for South African award winners

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

Why female journalists in Pakistan don t like coffee

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, Young Journalist Award 2022 Winner

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, Young Journalist Award 2022 Finalist

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, Young Journalist Award 2022 Finalist

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 Ral Kestler, Young Journalist Award 2022 Finalist

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

Empowered - a year on from winning the Young Journalist Award

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 ...