Year: 2017
Community Media Trust: Amplifying Young Women’s Voices; Supporting Media for Community Health
Community Media Trust: Amplifying Young Women’s Voices; Supporting Media for Community Health
In short 12-minute inserts, Siyayinqoba, a television documentary series, helps young women claim their spaces by telling their own stories to other young women. Using popular media such as television and social media outreach, the programme makes substantial gains in the fight to give South Africa’s youth enough information to make informed decisions about their health rights. South Africa has one of the highest HIV rates in the world and the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province has the highest concentration of HIV in the country. It continues to record consistently high prevalence of the HIV in the age cohort of 15-49 years. Rising HIV rates are attributed to declining knowledge as well as an increase in risky sexual behaviour.
Research shows that young women have a disproportionate risk compared to their male peers with adolescent girls ages 15-19 eight times more likely to be infected with HIV. Young women ages 20-24 are more than three times likely to be infected with HIV than their male peers. Young women’s risk for HIV is further exacerbated by high rates of violence against women as well as rape, income and gender inequalities and other harmful cultural practices that target women. Siyayinqoba is a media product of the Community Media Trust (CMT) which promotes knowledge, transparency, accountability and democracy through the production of multiple forms of media, training and communication “in order to capacitate communities to improve their quality of life in South Africa”.
Watch their amazing story below:
Read the entire Grantee highlight here: CMT Grantee Highlight
A Model for Saving- New Faces New Voices: Graca Machel Trust
A Model for Saving- New Faces New Voices: Graca Machel Trust
New Faces New Voices is a pan African advocacy group that focuses on expanding the role and influence of women in the financial sector. “For us to have inclusive growth,” said NFVF Executive Director Nomsa Daniels, “we can’t afford to leave 50% of the population behind.” This belief that women have the potential to deliver a significant contribution to economic growth in Africa drives the organisation’s mandate. In 2015, the organisation identified the need to bring women into the formal banking sector to enable them to have access to financial services. NFNV Uganda Chapter director Theopista Ntale had been a banker for over 20 years, and therefore, understood the sector. “She also saw how the banking sector does not really serve women who are not able to access the full range of services,” explained Daniels. In Uganda, as in many African countries, there are clear gender inequalities in the finance sector with the majority of women lacking access to financial services and remaining unbanked and financially excluded.
The 2013, FinScope Uganda’s national survey on demand, usage, and access to financial services noted that the low usage of the formal banking products and services impacts heavily on the level of savings mobilised domestically through the financial system, which in turn affects access to credit and investment by the private sector. That survey also identified that the level of financial literacy among the adult population also remained low. “Lack of knowledge about existing financial products and services was rife among a large proportion of the adult population,” said the Finscope Report. Limited access to financial services is one of the biggest obstacles to development — especially in rural areas. Often the gap is bridged through the use of savings groups — most of whom are led by women.
Read the rest of their riveting story below, and watch the interview above for more insight into the work of the advocacy group.