The Global Press Institute

Today, I’m over at Gender Across Borders, talking about the Global Press Institute!  Here’s a little teaser:

Every Thursday, Chicago’s NPR station, WBEZ, has a series called Global Activism.  I’m a new subscriber, but, as a writer here at Gender Across Borders, you can see why the series caught my interest (and I highly recommend it).

A few weeks ago on Global Activism, Cristi Hegranes, founder of the Global Press Institute, was interviewed.  The Global Press Institute is a not-for-profit organization that trains women around the world to be journalists.  Hegranes was inspired to start this program while she was interviewing women around the world for her own reporting.  She said she felt she lacked the context that the women who actually lived in these areas had, both socially and politically, and felt that the women she was interviewing would do a better job writing these stories than she would.

Now, the Global Press Institute has trained and employs 124 women around the world between the ages of 18 and 66 and from all different walks of life.  When asked why Hegranes wanted to focus specifically on women, she said that a women-centered project wasn’t originally in her business plan, but she decided she wanted community development to come from this project as well.  Women who are trained with a specific skill set tend to stay where they are and put money back into the community, whereas men tend to move out of the community for higher paying jobs.

Go check out the rest of the article!  Go now!  You know you want to!

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