BACKGROUND

Farm Radio International is a Canadian organization that has been working since 1979 to harness the power of radio to meet the needs of small-scale farmers. We work with more than 1,300 radio organizations located in more than 37 African countries to fight poverty and food insecurity. With the benefit of FRI resources and training, our broadcasting partners deliver practical, relevant, and timely information to tens of millions of farmers, including women farmers. We also work with a range of partners to implement radio projects that address specific development challenges and community needs.

Farm Radio International has a network of more than 1,300 radio partners across sub-Saharan Africa, who are supported with information and training resources, services, and opportunities to improve the quality and quantity of radio programming for rural audiences. One of these resources is Barza Wire, an online news service sharing stories about rural communities and small-scale farmers in Africa, published bi-weekly. Each edition shares 3 news stories (500-700 words), which are written by freelance journalists from across Africa. Barza Wire is published at wire.farmradio.fm and is shared by email with more than 7,000 subscribers. Another one of these resources is our Script packs, comprising interview and drama scripts, backgrounders, radio spots, and other information documents. These are about 3,000 words in length and are found at scripts.farmradio.fm

Radio Resources values

All of our resources focus on family farmers and rural people. We strive to represent the innovations, solutions, opinions, and concerns of rural people in order to provide them with accessible information that is useful to them. We are particularly interested in promoting environmentally-sustainable agricultural practices, especially those whose effectiveness has been proven by African family farmers, as well as best practices for good health, food security, and advancing gender equality.

We strive to represent the voices of women and men. We research and produce our work in a way that highlights the work of women as farmers, as well as community leaders, public servants, etc. We strive to cover issues that rural women consider important, but we also explicitly seek female and male sources for all stories.

KEY AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY

In collaboration with the Resource Coordinator,

Coordination of assignments

• Identify, from a list of FRI-trained / approved writers, someone available / interested to write on the topic assigned, in the country identified, within the timeline.
• Communicate this name & contact info to FRI’s Resource Coordinator, who will draft the contract.
• There will be 4-6 resources to assign per month.
• Offer feedback to the writer on their pitch document
• Follow up with the writer to ensure that the script or story is on topic and will be received before the deadline. Ensure a photo will also be shared.

Editing

• With the writer, review, edit, and fact-check scripts and stories produced by anglophone writers until it is publishable. It can then be shared with the Resource Coordinator for separate rounds of review and editing before the story is translated and published.
• Ensure scripts and stories are written in a style that is easily read on air and that values rural people, particularly women.
• There will be 4-6 items per month to edit.

Writer recruitment and training

• As necessary, identify potential writers, particularly women, in key countries of FRI operation to contribute.
• As necessary, support online writer training.

The editor may also be asked to support the revision of other documents, including Broadcaster how-to guides.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Hold a diploma in journalism or communications or any other related training
• 3+ years of professional experience in journalism
• Excellent ability to write and revise texts in English
• Fluency in English, both orally and in writing
• Experience in capacity building and coaching of journalists
• Good command of writing for radio
• Excellent command and monitoring of African agricultural and rural news
• Excellent command of IT tools, including good familiarity with WhatsApp
• Excellent time management skills, with a good ability to work independently and in a team remotely
• Demonstrate interpersonal skills and openness
• Previous experience supervising and managing a team of freelance journalists (an important asset)
• Knowledge of gender issues, agriculture, rural development, environment, health.