More members are set to return to school for undergraduate and post graduate  following the Association's fifth Annual Scholarship Fund Dinner on 30 October 2009.

The event, aimed at increasing the number and impact of women in the media, especially in decision making processes, empowering women by enhancing their skills, knowledge and access to information technology as a way of combating negative portrayal of women both locally and internationally. This initiative also sought to challenge instances of abuse of power in this increasingly important industry, media. AMWIK's chairperson Ms Sylvia Machini challenged the media in Kenya to take deliberate efforts to include women in their top management and create space for women leadership bearing in mind that Kenya will be one of the African countries reporting on the progress in achieving the Beijing platform for Action by especially focusing on article J in the Beijing document on Women and Media, whose strategic objective is to increase the participation and access of women to expression and decision making in and through the media and new technologies of communication. She added that the representation of women at top leadership levels is still fluctuating.

Among the guests present was Norwegian Ambassador, Ms Elisabeth Jacobsen who was also the Chief Guest.  Her presence was highly welcomed as it demonstrated and further cemented the Embassy’s support for the Gender and Governance program, a joint collaboration with AMWIK aimed at increasing the participation and influence of women in Governance structures in Kenya.

Ms Jacobsen recognized media as an important contributor to democracy as it plays a central  role in ensuring that citizens are informed and that their voices are heard. In addition, she affirmed that media plays a critical role in holding politicians and leaders accountable, and visualize lack of accountability, so that citizens can make their judgment in the course of elections. Lastly, noted that media has an important role to play in changing gender based stereotyping that has marred some of the current media. Ms particularly encouraged journalists to ask the right questions and work on investigative journalism, and not focus so much on the persons and the political games.

In her speech she reiterated that the need for mentorship cannot be underscored since there is a dire need for women role models in all sectors in society in order to reach gender equality and democracy goals.

Previous Scholarship Fund Dinners

Over the last five years AMWIK’s fundraising dinners have raised Ksh 4.4 million and enabled 13 AMWIK members to pursue local university education at undergraduate and post graduate levels. One of the guests invited was one of these 13 previous scholarship fund winners.