Elizabeth Angira: Meet AWiM 22 Pitch Zone Winner

Elizabeth Angira is one of the winners of the AWiM2022 Agenda 2063 Pitch Zone Awards.

Elizabeth was among the winners announced during the closing ceremony of the sixth African Women in Media Conference (AWiM), which took place in Fez, Morocco on 9th December.
Each year, during the annual African Women in Media Conference, female journalists drawn from the continent are allowed to pitch stories in the five categories to organisations that have partnered with AWIM to create a platform for female journalists and other media practitioners to engage and discuss key issues of the day.
The AWIM Pitch Zone is unique in that it provides journalists with a setting where they can showcase their creativity and ultimately be awarded the funding that will support their ambitions to see their stories come to life and give a voice to the communities represented in their final work.

Elizabeth won in the category of Promoting efforts towards the Economic and Financial Inclusion of African Women (Agenda 2063 Aspiration 6, AU Gender Equality and women’s Empowerment Strategy, GEWE; African Charter on The Rights of Women in Africa, AU Constitutive Act).

Short bio of the award winner

Elizabeth is a multiple award-winning journalist based in Kisii County, Kenya, and an associate member of the Political Journalist Association and Kenya Correspondent Association.

She is accredited as a journalist by the Media Council of Kenya (MCK). She holds a Diploma in Mass Communication and Journalism from the Eldoret Aviation Training Institute.

Elizabeth possesses a wide range of knowledge and skills in reporting, audio editing, script writing, feature writing, production of radio programmes, voicing, mass communication and journalism.

AWiM Editor Janet Otieno had a chat with Elizabeth and she shared the following regarding her win.

1. What difference will this award make in your career?

This award, at a personal level, will have three significant implications on my career. One, it will bestow upon me a great honour since it will be a mark of society’s recognition and appreciation of the small role I am playing in giving the voiceless vulnerable members of our African people -women. Secondly, it will be a huge responsibility upon me in that it will be a mark of the bare minimum of what society expects of me as a journalist in my work-be objective, insightful, consistent and Pan-Africanist in telling the story of Africans.  Thirdly, and perhaps the most critical, it will be easy for me to mentor and guide young and upcoming women journalists in rural Africa since the award will act as a motivator to them in that I, a woman journalist from rural Kenya, would win an African award by telling the story of the day-to-day life on ordinary Africans.

2. What difference have you made as a journalist in respect to the subject area of this award?

The story of Africans, especially of the African woman, has not been told. Where it has been told, it has not been told fully or has been told in a way that paints the African woman negatively -a failure, weak or abused by being subjected to gender-based violence etc. This is not true because we have had successful African women – Prof. Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Slyvie Kiningi, the first African woman Head of State and the Prime Minister of Burundi, Zenzile Miriam Makeba (Mama Africa), the South African singer, songwriter, actress, and civil rights activist, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), President Catherine Samba Panza of the Central African Republic, Dora Bouchoucha Fourati, Tunisian world-renown female film producers and many more great African women. In my small way, I have made efforts to tell the African woman story highlighting some of the great success in form of the impact of legal and regulatory changes, policy implementation and socio-economic development. For instance, while the issue of female genital mutilation (FGM) has been greatly reported from the point of its survivors’ stories e.g. young girls undergoing the process and rescued or rushed to hospital after bleeding excessively, one of my most enlightening stories was when I interviewed several reformed FGM practitioners and parents of daughters who have undergone the process and those whose daughters have not been subjected to it after which I wrote a story to show the practice is dying organically.  In my writings have made efforts to play my part in making a difference in society through my stories and in the process be an inspiration and a role model to the young women in my community, Kenya and Africa in general.

3. What contribution have you made to the journalism profession that is most meaningful to you?

I write stories that have been published and mentioned in various forums, including some attended by journalists, young and old, as well as in public meetings attended by women, including rural-based ones. Besides, I have won a few awards which have been highlighted on various platforms, including social media. On the one hand, this has seen many young and upcoming journalists approaching me for consultation, which in turn has enabled me to guide and mentor many such journalists. On the other hand, my stories have been used by editors and media practitioners to enlighten young journalists on what good story writing is all about. But perhaps more importantly, I have also grown as a journalist in terms of my worldview, which has enabled me to write even better the African woman story thereby contributing to the growth of the journalism profession.

4. How would you use being the recipient of this award to influence others and how would it impact your career?

I would use this award to motivate other journalists, especially the young and upcoming ones, to keep learning and improving their writing of the African woman story. If I win it will definitely give me name recognition among the journalists and hence I will have a good platform to motivate fellow journalists on the continent. But at a personal level, it will be a motivator and a challenge to work even harder because it would have raised the bar on what I would do/write as a journalist.

5. What is your greatest career accomplishment?

I can sum up my greatest career accomplishment from an incident that happened to me one day early this year. I was walking down one of the streets in my home town, Kisii, one morning and a young lady unknown to me walked up to me smiling and calling out my name she told me “I read your story on FGM online and I loved it. Keep up the good work.” I was speechless because it is so humbling, gratifying and satisfying all rolled into one.  This made me realize that the African story, especially about the African woman, is a great story and I had made great strides in telling it in my own way but still managed to be noticed by not only strangers including ordinary young women in the streets, but also be recognized and even awarded by reputable organisations for just telling it. How many great African journalists, men and women, have never been recognized in their home area and even won an award?

6. If you could do one thing, leave one mark, on the journalism profession, what would it be?

Convince one more young journalist to acknowledge that the African woman’s story is a great story and start writing about it passionately.