International Women's Media Foundation - The Maisha Yetu Project

The Maisha Yetu Project

This project is no longer running. In 2002, working with a $1.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the IWMF created the Maisha Yetu project to enhance the quality and consistency of reporting on HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria in Africa. The first phase of the project was qualitative and quantitative research on how the media cover HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria, which was published as Deadline for Health: The Media's Response to Covering HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria in Africa.

The second phase of Maisha Yetu was the creation of Centers of Excellence in three African countries with the goal of creating practical, sustainable measures to help African media improve their health coverage. A report on the project, Writing for Our Lives: How the Maisha Yetu Project Changed Health Coverage in Africa, was published in July 2006. A conference was also held in Johannesburg, South Africa in July 2006, where representatives from the Centers of Excellence shared their experiences with representatives from key African media and nongovernmental and women's organizations.