The first three sessions of the training on “Gender Equality in the Media” - funded by the Council of Europe and promoted by the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe - took place online between February and April 2021.

All the sessions of this training, designed for media professionals, students and CSO representatives are implemented by COPEAM and gather participants from Africa, Middle East and Europe for bi-monthly sessions until June 2021.

Together, the participants reflect on ways to counter sexist stereotypes and to promote gender equality in the media, namely by :

raising awareness around gender in/equality issues in the journalism field in relation to both content (practice) and career development (employment);

clarifying the connection between professional challenges to gender equality and the democratic functions of the media;

developing participants’ skills to implement gender-sensitive forms of journalist practice;

identifying strategies to challenge gender-based inequalities in the media workplace;

applying learnings to participants’ own national and cultural contexts;

sharing and discussing gender-in-journalism issues within an inter-cultural context;

developing a gender-based story idea which could be elaborated into a piece of short-form video journalism.

The kick-off meeting was organised on the 17 February in synergy with UNESCO’s UniTWIN Network on Gender Media and ICT. On that occasion, a wide range of relevant resources and good practices regarding gender equality in the media were presented. Participants had the opportunity to work in groups and discuss the potential applications of these resources to foster gender equality in and through the media in their specific contexts: education and research, journalism practices, civil society initiatives, gender sensitive media policies.

The second session was held on the 22 March and tackled the core subjects of the training. A number of video lectures on gender portrayal in the media were viewed and discussed in groups. The Advancing Gender Equality in Media Industries (AGEMI) platform, which takes an innovative and integrated approach to combat gender stereotypes and promote an egalitarian, diverse and inclusive media sector, enriched participants' knowledge on some of the research findings in this area and the strategies adopted to challenge stereotypes and change the 'picture'.

Yesterday, the third session was the starting point of the technical part of the training aiming to develop communication support for each of the participants. To this end, a practical workshop on cross-media production techniques and smart forms of journalism will initiate the second module, and two media experts will accompany participants - through technical and editorial sessions - in the realization of news items based on the subjects written and developed during the previous step.