SUDANESE JOURNALISTS TACKLE TOUGH TOPICS WITH BACKING AND GUIDANCE FROM JHR
Gender rights, human rights are a top priority for organization
JHR’s work in South Sudan is focused on strengthening the capacity of the media to report on issues that impact citizens – particularly those related to human development needs such as gender equality, health and education. The goal is to call governments to action, increasing their accountability, improving leadership and encouraging policy change. • Jale Richards, a reporter for the Juba Monitor, published an article in 2016 sparking an investigation into missing payments for girls’ education at a local school in South Sudan. Undisclosed errors caused more than 40 names to be absent from the list of female students eligible to receive funding from Girl’s Education South Sudan (GESS), a project supported by the United Kingdom. Jale’s story highlighted concerns over the procedure for dispersing cash funding to encourage enrollment and attendance of female students. • Jale heard accounts of teachers stealing the money and faculty requesting parents donate funding to pay for school repairs and costs. His story prompted the GESS to hold a public awareness event during which journalists sought direct answers. The questions he posed led organizers to conduct an investigation into the missing funds ensuring that they would be dispersed to the students who need them. • Sarafina Paul is a journalist at Bakhita Radio in Juba, South Sudan. Earlier this year, she pitched an idea to an Arabic talk radio show to discuss the impact of dowry payments on young couples. These payments not only impose added financial stress on couples during the country’s current economic crisis, but skew power dynamics in relationships. Through her JHR mentorship, Paul expanded this program to include in-person and live radio interviews, while promoting public discourse on an important women’s issue. The show resulted in many calls to the station and put an issue previously ignored, or dismissed as a ‘woman’s problem’, high up on the public agenda.