In Africa, women’s voices are still largely missing form media, especially the most marginalised, like rural or migrant women. Raising awareness about gender inequalities and women’s rights and giving women opportunities to use media to articulate issue and priorities, is an important part of ensuring that these issues receive the attention they need. CMFD works to raise awareness about women’s rights and gender through polar forms of entertainment – such as drama and music – as well as working with women, both media professionals and community members, to strengthen the use of media for development.

Specific Projects and media training related to women and gender have included the following. However, CMFD believes strongly in mainstreaming gender and women throughout all programmes, and specifically takes into account how a gender perspective on issues, and makes specific efforts to include women in all programmes, including women characters within our radio dramas.

Road to Equality: Voices and Views on the SADC Protocol
(Africa - English, September 2009)To assist in the campaign for ratification, domestication, and implementation of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development, CMFD produced 10 radio features for Gender Links exploring key provisions and issues contained in the document. The 10 features explore issues from customary law to gender-based violence to women in economic development, and feature interviews from activists across the region. The programmes are to be distributed to radio stations all over SADC. A guide for presenters provides discussion questions and ideas for additional activities.

Tjoon'in 16 Days of Peace Taxi Campaign

( Tjoon’in South Africa 2008)
Tjoon’in is a Gender Links production in partnership with Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality and Gauteng Women in Transport, produced by CMFD Productions as part of the 2008 16 Days of Activism campaign for distribution on public transport. The CD is a mix of fun and interesting audio pieces, including spots (PSAs), music, personal testimonies, and reports that raise awareness about various 16 Days themes, particularly gender violence, xenophobia, human trafficking, and men as partners.

Crossroads Radio Drama
(Africa - English, French, Portuguese, Swahili
When a market trader becomes frustrated with the local police inspector who is more interested in lining his pockets than finding her missing daughter, a magic drink  provided by the local alcohol brewer causes the trader and police inspector to switch bodies. Each has the opportunity to see how the other gender lives! Crossroads is six-episode serial radio drama produced for FAHAMU and FEMNET exploring issues related to the African Union Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa. Produced in Swahili and English  for Kenya, French for Senegal and Portuguese for Mozambique, each 20-minute episode delivers adventure and intrigue, as well as subtly interwoven messages around women's rights.

Dealers/ Troco
(Zambia, Mozambique - English, Portuguese)
The young woman lets out a terrified scream. “Leave me alone!” she cries. The harsh male response comes back “I’m going to teach you how to do your job!” How does love, the mafia, and friends and family combine to leave a woman desperate, and a community torn apart?? Find out in an exciting serial thriller that follows a family of women traders who get caught up in a mafia scandal and underground human trafficking ring. Dealers/ Troco is a 13-part action-packed serial radio drama produced for the Internatuonal Organsiation for Migration. Created in Portuguese for Mozambique and English for Zambian audiences, each 20 minute  episode raises awareness about human trafficking and related issues, as well as communicates specific knowledge and skills, such as how to recognise suspicious offers. Though designed for Mozambique, Troco was broadcast via RTP'S Africa service to Mozambique, Angola, Sao Tome, and Guinea.

Rural Women's Radio
(South Africa, Kenya, Sierra Leone)
As part of a three-part project initiated by FAHAMU Networks for Social Justice and in collaboration with local partners, CMFD worked with rural women to produce radio/ podcast programmes about women's rights, especially related to rural women.  Each of the workshops was conducted in a participatory way, with the participants, who were mostly women from rural communities, identifying issues and priorities, as well as conducting interviews and producing on-site radio programmes that could be distributed to radio stations, community groups, and distributed through Pambazuka podcasts.

For the past three years, CMFD Productions has recorded and produced spoken narrations by survivors of gender violence as part of Gender Links "I" Stories project, conducted annually as part if 16 Days to ensure that survivors of violence have the opportunity to have their voices heard. The audio recording complement a print publication and distribution of these stories to media as part of 16 Days coverage.

Humbanane

(South Africa, Mozambique - Shangaan, isiZulu, and Portuguese)
As part of efforts to combat violence against women and promote human rights, CMFD and the Johannesburg-based Mozambican youth group Alertos da Vida - with funding from the Global Fund for Women - released an Afro-Jazz compilation, Humbanane. Bringing together close to 20 artists, both musicians and actors, the CD was recorded in CMFD’s Johannesburg studio and shows the range of influences involved in its creation. Moving from jazz to rap to the colourful stylings of traditional Mozambican marrabenta, in Shangaan, isiZulu, and Portuguese, the compilation is as varied as its contributors.

Children and Youth

When children and young people have access to media, they have a voice in their world, and are able to advocate on issues that effects them. Children's participatory media is an effective way to include young people in a process that shapes their futures, while educating other young people and reflecting on obstacles that facing society as a whole.

Children's participation means not just giving children the opportunity to be involved, but also to be at the forefront of the decision-making, planning, and implementation process. This means putting the programme in the hands of the children, guiding a process that ensures good quality, accurate information, while offering a full range of freedom of expression. It is a mutual learning process, a a collaboration based on respect between young people and those with the technical know-how to make their voices heard loud and clear.

World Summit Kids Programme South Africa

Community Media for Development/ CMFD Productions was present at the 5th World Summit on Media for Children from 25-27 March. Working with a group of children at the summit, we produced a series of radio programmes to provide an opportunity for young voices to be heard, while reaching a wider audience with the issues that were being addressed during the summit. Working in groups of 2-4, the volunteer participants were a young dynamic group that put together some very creative programmes focusing on globalisation and the internet. The programmes include voices from South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Trinidad, United States, Mozambique, Brazil, Angola, Haiti, and Angola. The process brought together young people speaking various languages.

Khuluma Afrika! Counter-Trafficking Community Theatre (South Africa & Mozambique)

To support the International Organization for Migration's Southern African Counter-Trafficking Assistance Programme (SACTAP) to raise awareness of trafficking issues in South Africa, a community theatre production was created that addresses human trafficking and migration issues, with performances in Portuguese, designed mainly for the Mozambican community in South AFrica. Each performance combined drama, dance, music, discussion, and the distribution of information materials. The project builds on work done previously for SACTAP to produce the 'Get the facts before you go!' PSAs.

Project- Alertos da Vida  (South Africa)

Alertos da Vida,  a Portuguese language participatory media group, uses theatre, radio and print to raise awareness around HIV/AIDS and human rights. The group was formed out of a need to address these issues in a Portuguese language setting. Because of the current economic situation in neighbouring Moza mbique, Johannesburg has become a target for thousands of Mozambicans looking for work. However, many of the people coming into the country speak little or no English, and only enough Zulu or other South African language to get by from a day to day basis. Because of this language barrier, current information campaigns and initiatives are not reaching this community.

National Children’s Participatory Radio Forum (Mozambique)

CMFD Productions collaborated with IBIS - Mozambique to bring together children, accompanied by young adult presenters working on children's programmes, from 42 radio stations across the country to participate in the National Children's Radio Seminar 2004. The goal of the seminar was to engage in a participatory process to create a series of magazine style radio programmes produced by and for young people. Participants gained first hand knowledge in interviewing, creating spots, putting together reportage, and developing radio dramas. The magazines address the right to education, the right to health, and the right to play. CMFD provided two onsite studios, did all recording and production, and facilitated the drama portion of the Seminar. A follow up project involved creating a children’s SFX CD.