A Call Out to Women to Tell Their Story. Anytime. Anywhere!

The representation of women in Sri Lankan media over the past few years has breached many ethical standards, resulting in the reinforcement of negative stereotypes. “The technological development of media has not been able to address the gaps in gender justice,” said Mr. Sudarshana Gunawardana, Attorney-at-Law in a private interview with Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum (SDJF). Women are still portrayed in the media based on the presumption that less attention should be given to women-related issues. More often mainstream media tends to exclude numerous economic, social and many other difficulties confronted by women in rural areas. The objectification of women in the press reinforces stereotyping of women. In addition, the LGBT community faces even more discrimination by media since their issues are often portrayed in an unethical manner without being factual and unbiased. Utilizing women as a ‘marketing tool’ by mainstream media further exemplifies the narrow focus of gender-sensitive reporting in Sri Lanka. Should respect and celebration of women merely confined to International Women’s Day?

In the last few years, the rapid growth in the usage of social media is extreme in Sri Lanka. Facebook as one of these social networks has become popular among youth and adults alike. According to the Sri Lanka Social Media Audience Survey 2018, there are 6.71 million social media users in Sri Lanka. Out of the total number of social media users, 90% utilize Facebook while YouTube and Instagram usage denote a rise of 81% and 79% respectively. To that end, there were many problems faced by both women and girls due to lack of safety dissemination of information in social media platforms. Majority of the social media users, especially girls and even women fail to grasp what is relevant from social media platforms and how to carefully avoid its adverse effects.

In this backdrop, having recognized the need to empower women in Sri Lanka, the Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum (SDJF) launched a programme entitled ‘Vibrant Voices; make your voice heard’ under the Media Empowerment for a Democratic Sri Lanka (MEND) program in partnership with International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) with the support of USAID. The key focus of this programme is to empower women’s organizations operating at the grass-root level to effectively and efficiently tell their issues by using new media tools. Selected organizations will receive intensive residential training for five days and will be mentored on how to use social media. Moreover, they will be linked with mainstream media and editors.

Accordingly, 4 women’s organizations and 1 transgender civil society organization from the Anuradhapura, Badulla, Batticaloa and Colombo districts benefited from the first intake. “It was a unique platform to learn and practically grasp the techniques of reporting, identifying a newsworthy story that can awake public awareness,” said Ms. Yasawathi Wasala from Ape Shakthi Women’s Organization, Polonnaruwa recalling the experience she gained from the Vibrant Voices Program. Ms. Chandra Jayarathne representing Women’s Development Centre Badulla further explained her experience: “The knowledge and practice on story hunting, storytelling, videography, and photography was immensely helpful for us to report numerous difficulties confronted by women in our community”.

All the women representatives who participated in the programme produced 30 multimedia stories featuring the voices of women in the process of democratization. Each organization received production grants up to Rs. 100 000 to produce appealing stories of women issues in their respective area and 4 days of in-house mentorship and coaching was given to shape their technical skills further. After the workshop, these women representatives got an opportunity to share their experiences in a TV programme.

With the success of the first phase, SDJF is pleased to announce the second phase of the Vibrant Voices Program with a focus on ‘mobile storytelling’ (MoJo) as an innovative and powerful method of telling the stories of marginalized and voiceless communities. This will be a novel experience for women to augment the practice of applying principles of ‘development communication’ on their own to achieve a positive social change. Moreover, the Vibrant Voices Program 2019/20 will educate the women representatives through a wide range of practical sessions to project voices of vulnerable and marginalized women we seldom hear.

At a time when all media are increasingly being digitalized, MoJo will be very useful for women in Sri Lanka, in shaping and promoting their narratives in a digital format!