Press Releases

Journalists Trainees Win International Award for HIV/AIDS Reporting

Internews Kenya Internews trainees Ann Mikia, staff producer at KBC, and Sammy Muraya, freelance producer/presenter, won an award for their HIV/AIDS reporting.

(October 25, 2004) Two Kenyan radio journalists who received training in how to cover HIV/AIDS from Internews Network’s “Local Voices” project have won a prestigious award for the best HIV/AIDS radio program in Africa. The Union of African Radio and Television Organizations (URTNA) announced recently that Ann Mikia and Sammy Muraya had won the award for their weekly program, “A Stitch in Time.”

They both work for the Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation’s (KBC) English Service – Mikia as a staff producer and Muraya as a freelance producer/presenter. The KBC is Kenya’s public broadcaster and the only station to broadcast nationally. The English Service reaches at least one million listeners countrywide.

The award-winning program confronted the country’s National AIDS Control Council about the spread of HIV among matatu drivers, the main means of transportation in Kenya. It included the views of the drivers and the matatu owners association, as well as the opinions of young schoolgirls who get free rides from drivers in exchange for sex. This is an issue that is rarely discussed or acknowledged publicly.

“The people who work in this industry are young people and they come into contact with women from different walks of life everyday. These young men are paid daily, unlike other people who have to wait until the end of the month to get their salaries, and this is what makes it easy for them to lure girls.” Muraya recalls. “It was not easy to get people working in the matatu industry who were open [to discussing the issue].”

This was Muraya and Mikia’s first hour-long program. Previously “A Stitch in Time” was a 15-minute pre-recorded show. “Internews helped us to change the format of the program and gave us tips on how to negotiate with our editors for a better time slot,” Mikia says. “And now it has won us our first ever major award for the best program in Africa !”

According to Muraya, the coverage of this issue has had real impact. “When I interviewed the chairman of the matatu owners association he told me that they had approached the National AIDS Control Council to hold awareness campaigns targeting the matatu crews and the council had not responded. During the live radio program we invited both parties and they arranged a meeting in which, I later learned,the AIDS Control Council gave out stickers to be put in matatus. ”

Muraya and Mikia have just broadcast their fifth hour-long program. They produce the entire weekly show from the Internews Kenya offices. Internews provides them with a production studio, script-writing assistance and resources to find guests for their live broadcast. Other topics covered on “A Stitch in Time” have included discrimination and HIV, orphans and vulnerable children, nutrition and living with HIV/AIDS, and rape in refugee camps.

Internews' “Local Voices” program trains radio journalists, talk show hosts and deejays in how to report effectively on HIV/AIDS. The project is funded by a grant from the United States Agency for International Development.