The Africa Women Filmmakers Trust (AWFT): Using participatory media in development communication

The Africa Women Filmmakers Trust (AWFT) Using participatory media in development communication

The Africa Women Filmmakers Trust (AWFT), created in 1992 by founding members Tendai Munawa, Rebecca Kapenzi and Chido Matewa, works to advance gender equality and justice through the use of information and communication technologies by facilitating content production and dissemination that supports girls, women and disadvantaged communities to take informed choices. 

Taking into cognizance that information communication technologies are a gendered tool, AWFT strives to address imbalances in the access and use of ICT’s hence the adoption of the participatory approach which is empowering to its subjects, giving them a voice hence becoming protagonists of their own development.

The AWFT website provides important resources for those interested in deepening their knowledge of empowerment through participatory media. In addition, it presents AWFT ongoing and completed projects, testimonies and other useful information. 

Chido Matewa’s doctoral thesis entitled "Media and the empowerment of communities for social change" (2002) PDF, which makes a case-study on the Zimbabwean-based Africa Women Filmmakers Trust, offers further research on the important role that media women have played in the use of communication technologies as a tool for empowerment.