Press Releases

Kenyan Radio Journalist Wins Prestigious Scholarship for Her Reporting on Muslims and AIDS

Internews Kenya Zainab Aziz (foreground) recording in Mombasa for her radio program.

(December 10, 2004) Zainab Aziz, a Kenyan radio journalist and disc jockey who reports for Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation’s (KBC) Kiswahili Service, has won a prestigious award and scholarship. She will be spending a year in Bonn, Germany, as part of the Deutsche Welle Kiswahili Service exchange program. Aziz has been recognized for her reporting on HIV and Muslim women in Kenya (an estimated 10% of Kenyans are Muslim). Her work has made significant inroads in starting discussions within this community on topics that have traditionally been taboo.

“HIV/AIDS is an issue that is so often ignored in the Muslim community, so I felt that I had to do a program on it. Internews provided me with a travel grant to Mombasa, where I found HIV-positive Muslim women to interview. People were amazed by the program, they had never heard Muslim women admitting to having contracted HIV before…and it was not just my listeners and Deutsche Welle that were impressed…my managing director at the station also personally congratulated me and said that I could air HIV/AIDS programs whenever I like.”

As part of her scholarship agreement, she will continue to produce HIV/AIDS features that will be broadcast on both Deutsche Welle Radio and the KBC’s Kiswahili Service. “Now my AIDS features will be broadcast internationally as well!” an excited Aziz says. “My AIDS reports have helped me to improve my career.”

Aziz has also produced stories on children orphaned by AIDS, another important aspect of the epidemic in Kenya. “They really appeal to my listeners …they get to hear the voices of AIDS orphans.” Hearing the voices of children who have lost their parents to AIDS or children personally affected by AIDS is new to many listeners. Including the personal stories behind the epidemic is an important focus of Internews’ Local Voices training programs. Aziz is a Local Voices trainee and, most recently, was a co-trainer for the first Local Voices training in Mombasa.

Internews’ Local Voices project, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), equips and trains radio journalists, talk show hosts and DJs to improve reporting and programming on HIV/AIDS issues.