18 Months of CHARM
Variously termed “SIDA-funding”, “Civicus-funding”, and “FOJO-partnership”, the not-yet-named but
soon-to-be-named CHARM Consortium got off the ground in October 2019 – just 6 months before life as
we knew it changed irrevocably. Prof Franz Kruger, HOD of the Journalism Department and Juliana
Thornton, Partnerships Coordinator for the Department travelled to Ethiopia to meet with partners for a
joint planning session in December of 2019.
Juliana, Franz, Anton and many other members of the Department had already met Lars Tallert, Head ofPolicy and International Development of FOJO Media Institute who travelled to Johannesburg inNovember to meet with us and learn more of our activities. In retrospect it was these initial meetings
that played an important role in what was to become a close working relationship between the two“Media” partners of the consortium: ourselves and FOJO.
In Addis we met up with the 3 civil society partners who would also be lead partners of the Consortium:
Civil Rights Defenders is an expert organisation for human rights that partners with and supports humanrights defenders who work in some of the world’s most repressive regions on four continents.
DefendDefenders seeks to strengthen the work of human rights defenders throughout the region byreducing their vulnerability to the risk of persecution and by enhancing their capacity to effectively
defend human rights. DefendDefenders serves as the Secretariat of East and Horn of Africa HumanRights Defenders Network (EHAHRD-Net) representing more than 78 members, i.e. HRDs and theirorganisations.
Hub Afrique is a member of the Innovation for Change (I4C) global network of people and organisations
who want to connect, partner and learn together to defend and strengthen civic space as well as
overcome the restrictions placed on basic freedoms of assembly, association and speech. It is acommunity-led network inspired by ideas, methods, and technologies from across different sectors
In addition we were introduced to Sofie Gulberg, Programme Manager of FOJO and Caroline
Hammargren, Fundraising and Programme Officer. The beginning of a long and fruitful working
partnership.
The first activity which fell under the consortium banner was the Annual African Investigative Journalism
Conference (AIJC) of 2019. Held in person from 28-30 October at the Wits Science Stadium at Wits
University in Johannesburg it included plenty of time for in-depth masterclasses on a range of topics,
networking and socializing in ways we are no longer able to enjoy. We hosted a record 353 delegates intotal from 36 different countries including 57 African journalists from 26 countries on our fellowship
programme. We also had bursaries for 10 journalists from community media in South Africa and for 30
students: 10 from the SADC region and 20 South African students. The following African countries wererepresented: Sudan, Morocco, Madagascar, Kenya, Nigeria, Togo, Burundi, Liberia and Namibia.
The final months of 2019 were then dedicated to planning and finalizing the contractual logistics withCivicus. In early 2020 three students were selected to receive support to complete their Masters inJournalism this year: Hans Ngala from Cameroon, Tisaukirenji Tembo from Malawi and Adeoye
Emmanuel Aanu from Nigeria and these students have so far made good progress on their research andstudies.

We began planning for the inaugural JamFest, a new African media and information festival directed ata diverse set of African media makers and media publics, to occur in March. Two years in the planningand already once-delayed JamFest was intended to build on the successful work of JamLab and the Civic
Tech Innovation Network (CTIN), involving a wider audience and encouraging cross-pollination between
investigative journalists and civil society.
The initial plan was to meet with CHARM partners for the first “Face to Face Meeting for the SIDA
Consortium Project & Steering Committee Meetings” on the 16-17 March, then hold the inaugural
JamFest on the 18th March followed by CTIN meetings on the 19-20th which Consortium members werealso free to attend.
As it turned out the first COVID case in South Africa was announced 5 March, Cyril Ramaphosaaddressed the nation on 15 March indicating a state of Emergency; the Consortium Face-to-facemeeting was rapidly converted to an online meeting taking place 19-20 March; JamFest was indefinitely
cancelled pending a reschedule; and the whole of South Africa went into full lockdown by the end of themonth.
Wits University, and the Journalism Department along with it, rapidly pivoted to “Emergency Remote
Learning and Teaching”. We started a new series of Midweek Webinars in March to offer a virtual space
to discuss the challenges of journalism under Covid, which proved very successful, engaging newaudiences and new discussions.
Starting in April we were able to support journalistic projects in South Africa and across the continent
with record numbers of grants. In response to the effects of the pandemic on journalists in Africa theAfrica-China Reporting Project (ACRP) put out a call for a range of public health-focused grants. 11
grants were allocated in a first round in May/June to 7 female and 4 male journalists. Of these grants, 2were for Cameroonian journalists; 3 Kenyan; 1 Liberian; 2 Malawian; 1 Nigerian and 2 Sierra Leonian.
Together with Fojo Media Institute we worked to develop a network of journalism schools from acrossthe continent. A planned round table meeting was another early victim of the hard lockdown, but washeld virtually in May, with additional brainstorming sessions scheduled subsequently and finallyculminating in the newsletter AJENDA launched in early 2021
Work began on State of the Newsroom South Africa as well as, for the first time, a State of theNewsroom Malawi in partnership with Media Institute of Southern Africa MISA-Malawi
Work also began via interviews and data collection for a third report: a Mapping study of centres ofinvestigative journalism across the continent which will provide baseline data on the extent to whichinvestigative journalism is supported in the Consortium countries.
In June a group of our Masters students convened under supervision of Prof Lesley Cowling and Dr BobWekesa. The project comprised a new partnership between Wits Journalism Department, African MediaSalon, and the Wits African Centre for the Study of the United States. Articles were published in Octoberon https://www.africaportal.org/. For many student journalists this will be their first publication ofresearch/academic material. The partnership is also a new one for Wits Journalism.
July saw our annual conference Radio Days Africa go online. Radio Days 2020 (RDA20) was held from 5 to
31 July 2020 as the first ever on-line offering of Africa’s biggest radio conference. A total of 2778 peopleattended the twenty RDA sessions. A total of thirty-four different countries were represented byattendees, nineteen of these being from Africa. There were 789 unique people attending RDA2020 (as perthe registration system). New partnerships were initiated with 4 community radio stations in Zimbabwe
who re-broadcast some of the RDA sessions.
Applications also opened in July for the first Jamlab Accelerator Programme for Southern African students
and a promising cohort of 8 teams selected in September. Teams originated from Zimbabwe, Malawi,Madagascar, eSwatini, Zambia, Botswana and Angola.
Then-consultant and now Community Media Coordinator Jacob Ntshangase commenced work inSeptember on a Mapping of Community Radio in the CHARM countries. he Community Radio Mapping
will lead to increased understanding of the community radio landscape in the rest of Africa, and newopportunities for partnership and skills-building, particularly for the Wits Radio Academy.
The African Investigative Journalism Conference (AIJC) 2020 was held as a series of online events overthe entire month of October 2020. We had a record number of 457 registered delegates from 47
countries, and additional audiences for public events on You Tube and Facebook. Through the month ofthe conference, we reached a daily average of 1 188 people on Facebook and signed up 1 521 followers.
Our post-conference survey indicated the 25% of attendees worked in newsrooms and 38% were
freelancers. The rest were editors (10%) NGO/Civil society representatives (10%) and trainers (2%). Theycame from all media types, but the vast majority worked in online media. News articles covering theconference can be found here: https://aijc.africa/news/
We experimented with hybrid events with mixed success: We hosted simultaneous networking events infour cities during the Africa Check awards and the Carlos Cardoso Memorial Lecture. These were held ashybrid virtual and real events to enable small groups of AIJC2020 delegates to get together physically in
Botswana in partnership with INK Centre for Investigative Journalism, Uganda in partnership with thenewly launched Africa Institute for Investigative Journalism, Zimbabwe in partnership with theInformation for Development Trust, and we hosted our own in Johannesburg at the Wits Club.
As part of the conference we awarded 4 Henry Nxumalo grants to journalists Cliff Chiduku fromZimbabwe reporting on mining asset stripping, Odimegwu Onwumere from Nigeria reporting on youth
mental health issues; Elunya Joseph from Uganda reporting on government COVID-19 corruption andEkonde Daniel Congo from Cameroon reporting on disappearing forests in the Gulf of Guinea.
JamFest was finally held as part of Civic Tech conference in October .This was the first edition of Urban
Festival and the focus was on inclusivity, accessibility, and digital innovation. As part of the Festival
JamLab hosted weekly “Jam Cafes” Discussions focused on narratives, public opinion and media.
We ran our Development Communications (DevComm) course aimed at communicators in civil society
starting in October with a strong contingent of African students. The course finished in February and isexpected to contribute to civil society groups’ practical ability to communicate, and to think critically
about issues of development communication.
The State of the Newsroom South Africa 2019 report, titled “Before/After” was published in November,it has established itself on the SA media landscape as an important contribution to discussion andanalysis of the media. The report included a detailed analysis of the status quo of media ownership up

until the end of 2019, and a roundtable discussion of the roles and pressures faced by women media
workers in the newsroom.
We published a very well-received mapping study of journalism schools in sub-Saharan Africa inDecember.
And by the end of the year ACRP approved another 8 grants (5 men and 3 women) to journalists from
Liberia, Sierre Leone, Cameroon, Kenya, Lesotho, Nigeria, Malawi and Mali; as well as launched a newtraining website, www.africachinatraining.com .
In 2021, starting in February we accepted a number of African students for the Media Management
course, an introduction to management with a special focus on increasing the representation of womenin senior leadership. We were able to bursar 2 Zimbabwean students for the Advanced Radio Certificate
course and plan to run a second edition of the DevComm course for African students in April.
By the end of the pilot phase of the programme in June 2021 we will have provided grants to XXX
journalists from XXX countries resulting in XXX publications. We will have supported 3 Masters students,
XX DevComm students, XX Media management students and XX Radio students. Our combined
conferences will have provided training and skills-building for XXX journalists, editors and media-makers
across Africa. The 8 JamLab Accelerator teams from Southern Africa graduated successfully from theprogramme.

….

In summary, we provide a wide spectrum of capacity-building support to a diverse range of African
journalists and media--Networking and training opportunities at our annual conferences Radio Days Africa and theAfrican Investigative Journalism Conferences (AIJC)
Support for community radio personnel in the form of courses and training in content
production
Grants to support specific story ideas and mentorship and training to take it from idea topublication through the Africa-China Reporting Project and the Henry Nxumalo Fund
Career development in the form of our accredited courses in Media Management, with a focus
on women in senior leadership and support for communicators from the non-profit andgovernment sectors in the form of our Development Communications course
Our Accelerator programme – JamLab – provides early-career entrepreneurs with the tools tolaunch their own social justice and media organisations across the continent
Networking Journalism schools across the continent to share learnings and improve journalism
education in a systemic fashion.