The Maryam Babangida National Centre for Women Development has referred to as for a structured partnership with the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), FCT Council, to strengthen journalists’ capability to report girls’s points with larger accuracy, sensitivity and depth.
The Centre’s Director-General, Adedayo Benjamins-Laniyi, made the decision throughout a courtesy go to by the NUJ FCT Council, led by its chairperson, Grace Ike, to the Centre in Abuja.
Mrs Benjamins-Laniyi mentioned journalists play a important function in shaping public understanding of ladies’s growth, advocating insurance policies, and amplifying the experiences of ladies and women.
She proposed periodic coaching periods, media roundtables, and knowledge-sharing engagements to equip journalists with the abilities and data wanted to report on points together with girls’s financial empowerment, management, gender-based violence, schooling, and social inclusion.
“Let us invest in the capacity of journalists to report gender issues responsibly and effectively,” she mentioned.
According to her, the proposed partnership ought to transfer past expressions of goodwill to concrete commitments and measurable outcomes.
“As the 16th Director-General of the Maryam Babangida National Centre for Women Development, I extend a formal invitation to the NUJ FCT Council to become a strategic media partner in advancing the Centre’s mandate and strengthening the national movement for women’s empowerment,” she mentioned.
She referred to as for a proper media partnership framework to information joint advocacy, public enlightenment, media engagement and the promotion of women-focused initiatives.
Mrs Benjamins-Laniyi additionally urged journalists to make girls’s growth a constant a part of nationwide discourse somewhat than limiting protection to events corresponding to International Women’s Day.
She mentioned points affecting girls ought to obtain sustained consideration throughout print, broadcast and digital platforms all year long.
The director-general additional referred to as for platforms that might give larger visibility to girls entrepreneurs, rural girls, younger innovators, girls with disabilities, neighborhood leaders and others whose contributions usually obtain restricted public consideration.
She proposed that the Centre and the NUJ designate focal individuals to coordinate their engagement, determine precedence actions and periodically overview their progress.
“We should be able to look back at the end of each agreed period and point to specific achievements: programmes implemented, women reached, stories published, public awareness raised and opportunities created,” she mentioned.
Mrs Benjamins-Laniyi mentioned the partnership must also contain the media in shaping public conversations on girls’s growth, somewhat than merely inviting journalists to cowl the Centre’s actions.
“The Centre has a mandate to empower women. The media has the power to amplify that mandate. Together, we can turn that power into progress,” she mentioned.
Earlier, Mrs Ike mentioned the NUJ FCT Council was visiting the Centre to declare a “partnership of purpose” centered on inserting girls’s tales, voices and contributions on the centre of nationwide growth.
Mrs Ike, the primary feminine chairperson of the NUJ FCT Council, congratulated Mrs Benjamins-Laniyi on her appointment because the Centre’s sixteenth director-general and mentioned the council was able to collaborate with the establishment.
She mentioned Nigerian girls had contributed considerably to the nation’s households, economic system, tradition and democracy, however lots of their contributions remained undocumented or poorly represented within the nationwide narrative.
“Our theme is: Women in Journalism: Centring Women’s Stories, Voices and Contributions for National Development,” she mentioned.
Mrs Ike mentioned the media had a duty to amplify girls’s voices, showcase their achievements, spotlight challenges affecting them and promote conversations that advance equal alternatives and participation in nationwide growth.
She recognized the Nigerian Women Hall of Fame, situated inside the Centre, as an vital platform for preserving the contributions of Nigerian girls.
She mentioned the NUJ was keen to work with the Centre to doc and inform girls’s tales in a means that might encourage youthful generations, significantly women and younger girls.
The NUJ FCT chairperson additionally referred to as for larger consideration to grassroots girls, rural girls, girls in casual employment, girls with disabilities and younger girls whose contributions usually obtain little media consideration.
She proposed common options, interviews, and programmes on girls’s management, enterprise, innovation, and neighborhood affect, in addition to intergenerational dialogues involving veteran girls leaders, rising professionals, and younger women.
Other areas proposed by the NUJ embody public conversations on girls’s financial empowerment, digital inclusion, management, well being, security and rights, in addition to joint capacity-building programmes for journalists on moral and gender-sensitive reporting.
Mrs Ike mentioned feminine journalists must also be given larger alternatives for skilled growth and management inside the media trade.
She mentioned journalists ought to guarantee girls are seen in reporting on governance, the economic system, know-how, safety, schooling, well being, local weather change, tradition, and different points shaping Nigeria.
“Women are not merely beneficiaries of policy. They are experts, employers, innovators, caregivers, peacebuilders, taxpayers, voters, traders, farmers, researchers and leaders,” she mentioned.
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“Our reporting should connect women to information, opportunities, services and decision-making spaces. It should explain policies in clear language, expose barriers, highlight practical solutions and follow up on whether commitments improve women’s lives.”
Mrs Ike mentioned the NUJ FCT Council would designate a liaison to coordinate its engagement with the Centre and decide to common reporting on girls’s contributions, growth priorities and the implementation of insurance policies affecting girls.
She additionally proposed a follow-up assembly between each establishments to develop a sensible programme of joint actions.
The two establishments agreed that sustained collaboration between the media and the Centre may assist amplify girls’s voices, enhance public understanding of women-focused insurance policies and strengthen accountability for programmes designed to enhance the lives of ladies and women.
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