Girls Making Media project is a three year project based in Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Togo directly benefiting at least 140 adolescent girls and 30 adult journalists in each country. Implemented in some of the most marginalized areas of the four countries, the project indirectly reaches an audience of approximately 600,000 via national and community radio (and tentatively 400,000 via national television). The project is being implemented in a multi-level partnership approach between Plan Ghana, Plan Liberia, Plan Sierra Leone, Plan Togo, Plan West Africa, local and regional media partners, civil society and children & youth organizations from mainly rural communities.

Project Goal :
The goal of the project is to contribute to the elimination of gender discrimination and low quality media reporting on adolescent girls’ issues in West Africa.

Project Objectives :

• To strengthen the capacity of a minimum of 560 adolescent girls engaged in children and youth organizations from Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Togo to advocate against gender discrimination by making efficient use of diverse forms of media
• Increase girls’ opportunities to access media related jobs
• To train 120 adult journalists in issues facing adolescent girls in West Africa
• To increase the awareness of the public of the needs of adolescent girls in West Africa as the community, national, and regional levels

Expected Results :

• 560 girls from youth organizations in Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Togo have increased capacity and actively advocate against gender discrimination and gender based violence using a variety of tactics such as networking, media advocacy and public education.
• there is increased public awareness on the causes, consequences and possible solutions to gender discrimination and gender based violence amongst young people and decisions makers at family, community and district level
• 120 adult journalists in the four countries have increased capacity on the issues facing adolescent girls in West Africa
• High quality training materials for empowering girls and boys to address gender discrimination and gender based violence has been made available, tested and evaluated and is widely shared within the development sector

Project Activities :

1. Identify and assess the capacity of girls’ groups :
Plan Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Togo will interact with existing children and youth organizations and girls’ clubs to identify interest in the project. Once a selection of clubs has been made, Plan will carry out a participatory assessment of their knowledge of gender issues and their organizational capacity to carry out advocacy and make efficient use of media. For this purpose, the regional office will design – based on existing auto evaluation tools such as the Spider Tool (Save the Children) – a simple self evaluation tool to be administered by the children. The tool will aim at determining children’s individual and collective Assets, Achievements and Agency as a basis to monitor their personal and group empowerment process.

2. Train partner girls’ clubs :
The training activities will use and expand an already existing and successful youth group training guide developed by Plan Togo. The guide comprises 5 modules on Child Rights, Life Skills, Advocacy, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Group Organization. A sixth and seventh module will be developed on gender respectively the use of social media for advocacy. The guides use participatory training methodology and training capacity will be transferred to local facilitators of children and youth groups engaged in the project in Training of trainers’ sessions. The identified girls’ groups will subsequently receive training in :

3. Networking
To ensure that adolescent girls have the chance to exchange and learn from their peers’ experiences, Plan will support the girls with opportunities to meet and exchange during training sessions and follow up meetings. Plan will also review the possibility with the girls to use mobile phones and blogging as exchange tools, depending on the location and network/internet access of the identified girls’ groups.

4. Organization of media internships for performing girls
40 girls (10 from each country) with a special talent and keen interest to enter the journalistic profession will be identified amongst the groups and supported to receive an internship with media partners and/or courses in local media schools. The internships will not only enable them to affirm their decision to enter the media sector, but also increase their future job opportunities. This activity will commence at the end of year 2 of the project.

5. Train adult journalists in child rights, ethical reporting on gender and violence against girls and how to support youth journalists
Plan Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Togo will work with adult journalists engaged in Plan’s national radio project “Kids Waves” and active in the defence and promotion of child rights and gender. Identified journalists will receive training on ethical reporting on gender discrimination and violence against adolescent girls. This training will use a recently developed journalist training guide created by Plan WARO. In the selection of participants, emphasis will be put on female journalists who will continue to work with the girls’ clubs, serving both as a role model as well as a mentor and coach to the girls.