The Southern Africa Media and Gender Institute (SAMGI) was founded in 2003 as a result of the expanded activities of the Women’s Media Watch.
Due to the rapid diversification of the Media Watch activities, the organisation has set up a holding trust in the name The Southern African Media and Gender Institute and the Women’s Media Watch has become a project thereof. In this way, the Southern African Media and Gender Institute is able to fulfill the communication, gender awareness and critical media consumption needs of the Southern African Region. The effectiveness of the outreach to the region will be facilitated by the affiliation of regional organisations to SAMGI.

This structure enables the Women’s Media Watch to focus on the purer activities of deconstructing the media, monitoring the media and bring about constructive transformation in and by the media. Within these activities a forum is provided to give voice to voice to the voiceless at grassroots level and highlight their needs to the media industry.

The Women’s Media Watch was founded in 1994, as a project of the Community Arts Project, later known as Mediaworks. The Women’s Media Watch started as an interest group of women who saw the need to get the least represented female voices heard in the media. Women, the group predominantly denied access to the media, were finally given a platform to get their voices heard and to access information though the media.

This was the first Women’s Media Watch in the Southern African region and had no role model from which to draw experience. The small volunteer-staff component and the struggle for funding soon saw the vibrant project shrink and hibernate. In 1996, a new director was appointed to take Mediaworks (then known as the Community Arts Media Project) through a radical change process. The value of the Women’s Media Watch was recognised and the project was re-established, funded and an expert co-ordinator in gender and media appointed. In 1997, the Gender and Communications course was added to the Women’s Media Watch. Women’s Media Watch concentrated on advocacy, lobbying and activism. The Gender and Communications course was initiated to teach the skills required to deconstruct the media, develop critical media awareness skills, monitor the media, develop information technology skills and develop writing skills to a wider audience.

The organisation enjoyed a high level of recognition and the ability of the organisation to attract funding ensured that the Women’s Media Watch was able to fulfil its terms of reference and grew into a well-received project with good potential to replicate itself in the Southern African Region. The project was invited to local and international conferences where it enjoyed success.
The ‘new’ Women’s Media Watch concentrated on training in gender and media in training gender activists for campaign strategies, have also trained youth in media and gender awareness including looking at the impact of HIV/aids, domestic violence and poverty on their lives. A basic media production module was developed and this included print, radio and photography skills. Finally, New Information Technology was added to the skills training programme.

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