Media in Malawi has undergone considerable change in recent times. In the electronic media sector, a number of private and community radio stations have emerged, and three television stations are now operational. In the print media sector, aside from newspapers, several general and specialist magazines are now being published. The implication of these developments is that there has been an increase in the free flow of information and a related increase in the number of male and female journalists working for the various media houses. One of the down sides to these developments however is the lack of training in gender-sensitive reporting. To date, very few courses have been run on gender-sensitive reporting. This is a growing area of concern, especially as more and more and young professionals begin practicing.
 
The aim of this project is to train 20 journalists (both men and women) on gender-sensitive reporting, so as to promote a more diverse and gender-sensitive media, and at the same time build the general professional capacity of the journalists. The training will be based on the “Gender in Media Training: A Southern African Tool Kit” which was produced by the South African Institute for the Advancement of Journalism (IAJ) and Gender Links (GL), a Southern African NGO committed to the fair representation and portrayal of women in the media. This regional resource was developed collaboratively with inputs from several journalism training schools in Southern Africa, including the Malawi Institute of Journalism (MIJ). The toolkit is freely available on website of the partner institutions and also via the UNESCO website.