Between April and August 2017, Fondation Hirondelle\u2019s team in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) carried out a \u201cWomen and Elections\u201d programme supported by the Belgian Embassy. The journalists produced six short feature programmes and a mini-series for radio, which were broadcast by 107 media partners and on Facebook. Four \u201cHirondelle Debates\u201d were organized in Kinshasa, Goma and Lubumbashi, drawing several hundred participants each time.\u00a0 20 videos and one motion design video were produced. Two young women were among the four journalists who produced these programmes. Here they talk about the experience and about being a journalist in the DRC today.<\/p>\n
Why did you choose to be a journalist?<\/strong> What are the difficulties you encounter in this profession?<\/strong> How would you describe your collaboration with Fondation Hirondelle?<\/strong> What do you think about Congolese women\u2019s involvement in the election process?<\/strong> Between April and August 2017, Fondation Hirondelle\u2019s team in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) carried out a \u201cWomen and Elections\u201d programme supported by the Belgian Embassy. The journalists produced six short feature programmes and a mini-series for radio, which were broadcast by 107 media partners and on Facebook. Four \u201cHirondelle Debates\u201d were organized in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[196],"tags":[298],"class_list":["post-8501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-news","tag-current-project-democratic-republic-of-congo"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-20 22:24:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Gis\u00e8le Ntambuka: To reverse the tendency of certain international media which sometimes present a negative image of Africa.
Nathalie Sala: Ever since I was at secondary school I have dreamed of becoming a star television journalist in the Congolese media, and my father has supported me a lot in this desire. So to honour him I have to achieve my goal!<\/p>\n
Nathalie Sala: They arise mostly in the field and especially when you are least expecting them. It can happen that interviewees are scared of the microphone, also that an expert demands to be paid or does not meet your needs, and then you cannot ignore the security issues.
Gis\u00e8le Ntambuka:\u00a0 Travelling in the country to gather information. It\u2019s not a problem when you are young and single, but for an African woman it is hard to reconcile with family life.<\/p>\n
Gis\u00e8le Ntambuka:\u00a0 I learned new skills every day. The team is a family cocoon with whom you have some good experiences.
Nathalie Sala:\u00a0 The Fondation trains me every day, developing and improving my skills through sharing of experiences, training courses and also through the rigorous standards demanded.<\/p>\n
Nathalie Sala: Honestly, they never cease to surprise me. The interest they have shown in the Hirondelle Debates and the Women and Elections programmes shows they have a real thirst for knowledge. They follow the debate closely, and their lively minds defy the prejudices that say women are not interested in politics or, even worse, that they don\u2019t understand anything about it and shouldn\u2019t even try to participate.
Gis\u00e8le Ntambuka:\u00a0 With regard to their relation to politics, some of them leave the debates with their ideas completely changed, and some decide to get involved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"