A reporter from Radio Aurore makes his way down to the Bertoua market in eastern Cameroon. There, he interviews a 40-year-old housewife, Miriam. With a worried look on her face, she laments that food is too expensive and it is increasingly difficult to feed her family. The report conveys the challenges Miriam and millions of other African women face in their daily lives, and makes their voices heard across the web.
In honour of International Women’s Day, this month's feature focuses on an initiative to integrate more women’s perspectives into the media landscape. The World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) has recently launched a new portal dedicated to collecting and sharing women's narratives on the most important issues in Africa.
Miriam's story is just one of the several dozens of audio reports about women on AMARC's online audio sharing platform. The platform, entitled "Women's Words from Francophone Africa" showcases reports from community radio broadcasters from countries all over Africa. Stories from Benin, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal feature topics as diverse as gender-based violence, women leadership, maternal health, economic issues and women’s rights.
The reports are in French only. For more information, please visit http://www.amarc.org/index.php?p=Plateforme_paroles_femmes
