By Mabinty M. Kamara
The President of Women in the Media Sierra Leone (WIMSAL), Prosper Godwin Femi Jarrett-Coker, has called on female journalists in Sierra Leone to speak with one voice if their voices are to be heard.
The WIMSAL President made this call at a meeting organised at the SLAJ headquarters in commemoration of the organization's 13th anniversary on the 20th of November.
WIMSAL was established to serve as a platform for the country’s female journalists to mobilise and work towards a common good. As part of the commemoration, the leadership of the organisation has set 27th of November as date for a Thanksgiving Service.
Addressing members at the meeting, Ms. Coker admonished female journalists to continue to be focused and to not lose sight of the dream and vision of the organization's founders, which is to cement their place in the growing media industry and be the voice for all women and girls in Sierra Leone in the pursuit of equality, and various rights and freedoms.
She went on to note that with the repeal of the criminal and seditious libel law, there was a brighter future for female in journalists, stressing however that this will not be realised if they remain divided.
"So my message today, as we mark 13, is unity, love and sisterhood. What we can achieve together as WIMSAL, we can never achieve individually," she said.
"Therefore, I kindly urge all female journalists to unite under the umbrella of our noble organization and speak with one loud voice. There will always be challenges, there will always be differences of opinion on how we move forward, there will always be clashes between personal and collective interests; these are normal, they happen in every organisation; but they are not justification enough to abandon our goals and objectives to elevate the status of women in the media," she added.
At the meeting, WIMSAL members expressed joy and optimism in the growth of female journalists in the country and the organization as a whole, noting that a lot of progress has been made in developing the professional standards of female journalists and in championing worthy causes amidst diverse challenges.
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