The expansion includes welcoming six inaugural Advisory Partners from across the Philippines and Vietnam.
Through a series of unique training, mentoring and coaching sessions, WIN provides women in media with the chance to acquire new skills in a rapidly shifting landscape, and build their capacity to lead and transform organisations.
“As Covid-19 reshapes newsrooms, wreaks havoc on revenues and accelerates the move to digital platforms, journalists and editors are finding themselves having to constantly adapt to new realities as they strive to provide audiences with constructive and instructive information. We want to ensure women journalists can thrive in this new environment and lead the newsrooms of tomorrow”, says Melanie Walker, Executive Director, Women in News.
WIN’s flagship Leadership Accelerator, a two-month programme, equips participants with the tools and skills they need to respond to these existing challenges and emerging opportunities. From October 2021, women journalists in the Philippines will be joining a programme that has impacted more than 1,500 women across 17 countries in Southeast Asia, Africa and the Arab region.
At the end of the Accelerator, participants will receive:
- Certification in media management training
- Professional skills and Leadership training
- Gender balance and sexual harassment training
- One-on-one coaching to create a three-year career roadmap
- Facilitated group mentoring with peers
The expansion kicked off with a Media Best Practice event on Saturday (4 September) for the Advisory Partners, where experts from our regional and international network tackle topics that include improving workflow processes, managing costs, and making better use of data and analytics to drive strategic decision-making.
“We are delighted to be partnered with six media groups in the Philippines and Vietnam for the year 2021-2022. Our partners are Sunstar Cebu, Manila Standard, The Freeman, The Philippine STAR, VNExpress and Tuoi Tre Newspaper. We adapted the training material with the relevant data and information to align with the region’s needs to effectively support our partners. WIN’s programmes aim to increase women’s leadership and the voice of women in the media. Our arms remain wide open to those interested in collaborating with us to promote gender equality in the media industry,” says Khin Thandar Htay, the WIN director for Southeast Asia.
Additionally, as part of WIN’s commitment to creating more resilient newsrooms, the Philippines launch will see the introduction of Digital ABC, an online training course that helps media professionals better understand the impact of the digital shift on the industry, and equips them with the necessary capacity to drive change within their organisations.
WAN-IFRA Media Freedom programmes have been active in the Philippines since 2016, most notably via the establishment and support of Media Freedom Committees, through which news professionals collectively address major press freedom, safety and professional issues. The expansion of Women in News throughout Southeast Asia supports WAN-IFRA’s 2018-2023 Media Freedom Strategy.
Media contact:
Khin Thandar Htay
Director, Southeast Asia, WIN
khin.thandar@womeninnews.org