The continent of Africa bears the largest human burden of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In the absence of a cure for AIDS, accurate and relevant messages on prevention, care and support are necessary to reduce prevailing stigma and bring about behavior change. Information about malaria drug policies and TB treatment strategies can save lives – if people know about them.

The African media, therefore, have an important role to play in helping to prevent, cure and better understand these public health issues. This role goes beyond simply reporting the latest statistics. It requires holding governments accountable for their actions and reporting on the human face of disease. It goes beyond merely reporting facts to questioning actions, recording the lives of those living with major illness, and helping save those lives.

In 2002, working with a $1.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the International Women’s Media Foundation created the Maisha Yetu project to enhance the quality and consistency of reporting on HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria in Africa. Maisha Yetu was created to give African media the means to become more responsive to their communities and to magnify their efforts in reporting on health. Maisha Yetu means “Our Lives” in Swahili.

Phase One: Measuring Health Reporting

The first phase of Maisha Yetu was qualitative and quantitative research on how the media cover HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria in Cameroon, Botswana, Kenya, Senegal and Malawi. These countries were chosen because they reflect diverse media environments, different rates of disease and different responses from governments to disease. The result of the reseach was published in 2004 as Deadline for Health: The Media’s Response to Covering HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria in Africa.

Phase Two: Centers of Excellence

The second phase of the Maisha Yetu project was launched in September 2004 with the goal of creating practical, sustainable measures that would help African media improve their coverage of HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria. During this phase, the IWMF formed partnerships with “Centers of Excellence” in three countries to work with them on developing models for health reporting. Botswana, Kenya and Senegal were chosen as the countries for the second phase because of their regional diversity and because they have different media environments and diverse health profiles. The Centers of Excellence in phase two were:

Botswana – government-owned Department of Information and Broadcasting Services and privately owned Mmegi newspaper.

Kenya – privately owned Nation and Standard media groups (both of which include print and electronic media).

Senegal – government owned Le Soleil newspaper and privately owned Sud FM radio.

Journalists with experience as health reporters in each of these countries were selected to become local trainers. The local trainers, in collaboration with Harare-based project manager Aulora Stally, designed individual plans based on each country’s and each media house’s needs to move Maisha Yetu into newsrooms. The local trainers were: Tidiane Kasse (Senegal), Otula Owuor (Kenya) and Beata Kasale (Botswana).

Between March 2005 and March 2006, the Centers of Excellence held more than 20 skills-building workshops and trained some 1,000 journalists. The training was designed to link HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria to wider social and development issues as well as provide basic skills journalists need to cover health.

Women comprised as least half of participants in these workshops. Journalists from beats other than health and newsroom managers were also encouraged to attend workshops in an effort to spread health reporting to other news areas, such as economics, politics and features.

Accomplishments of the Centers of Excellence

Key accomplishments of the Maisha Yetu Centers of Excellence include:

Mmegi newspaper in Botswana established a health desk. Between October 2005 and January 2006, the newspaper published more than 100 stories on health and produced a special supplement on World AIDS Day 2005, which was inserted into the main newspaper.
Botswana Radio 1 developed a 15-minute program, Letlhabile (“The Sun Has Risen”) on HIV/AIDS, as a direct result of Maisha Yetu. The project also played a key role in developing more in-depth content for Re Mmogo (We Are Together), an award-winning, half-hour weekly program on HIV/AIDS on Botswana Television.
In Kenya, by February 2005, at least 42 stories on HIV/AIDS appeared in the Nation and Standard newspapers as a direct result of Maisha Yetu. At least 19 radio or television stories appeared during the same time period.
Since August 2005, Horizon, the weekly science supplement at The Nation newspaper in Kenya has devoted some 50 percent of its space to articles on HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria.
One Maisha Yetu journalist, Mike Mwaniki of The Nation in Kenya, took on corruption by Kenya’s National AIDS Control Council. He wrote 10 articles exposing misuse of government funds and set the pace for other journalists to expose corruption by government and nongovernmental organizations.
In Kenya, a database of 250 journalists working on health stories was created to help them share information and tips.
In Senegal, between September 2004 and May 2005, Le Soleil published 106 stories on HIIV/AIDS, nine stories on TB and 43 stories on malaria.
In Senegal, Sud FM broadcast approximately 40 stories on its weekly national health program between September 2004 and June 2005 as a result of Maisha Yetu’s influence. In addition, stories done on HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria by reporters in the provinces increased by 20-30 percent.

Writing for Our Lives: How the Maisha Yetu project Changed Health Coverage in Africa

Writing for Our Lives, published by the IWMF in July 2006, documents the successes and problems encountered by the Maisha Yetu project in the six Centers of Excellence. The publication includes narratives of how the project developed in each center as well as snapshots of several journalists and the stories they developed using tips learned from Maisha Yetu. Writing for Our Lives also includes Nine Best Practices for Health Reporting, a compilation of what works best if a newsroom wants to copy the Maisha Yetu project and implement its practices and successes. Maisha Yetu is flexible. Any media house can adapt the suggestions in Writing for Our Lives to fit its own needs.

Johannesburg , South Africa -- July 19-20, 2006

In July 2006, the International Women’s Media Foundation will bring representatives from the six Centers of Excellence in Botswana, Kenya and Senegal to Johannesburg, South Africa, to share their experiences with key African media, and nongovernmental and women’s organizations. At the meeting the Centers of Excellence will report on their experiences with invited participants from throughout the continent. The goal of the meeting is to share the work of Maisha Yetu and map possible new directions for the project.

Listen to Aulora Stally and Gifti Nadi on Positive Talk, KAYA FM in South Africa.