Alfred Taban, Jacob Akol, Nhial Bol: How veteran journalists shaped a young woman’s media advocacy

Following the fight in Juba, in July 2016, veteran journalist Alfred Taban was jailed over an opinion article, leading to frantic calls to free him. Delegations visited National Security Service. Among those was Irene Ayaa, a young woman only about three years in the media industry.

“One of the national security personnel said that he liked Alfred Taban because he [Taban] always told the truth,” Ayaa recalls five years later. “From that moment I realized that everybody likes the truth. They can arrest you for the truth, but, deep inside, they like the truth.”

Taban had only recently, in 2014, been elected chairperson of the Association for Media Development in South Sudan, a media organizations umbrella, which donors, anticipating a Sudan peace agreement and the need to build a vibrant media, had played a crucial role in founding. At AMDISS, Ayaa was finally coming face to face with an icon, who, reporting for BBC and co-founding Khartoum Monitor, had kept the southern Sudan struggle in the news, often paying dearly.

Ayaa remembers a brave and friendly person. “He didn’t put himself high, but he always brought himself down to the level of the person he was interacting with,” Ayaa says. “From him, I learned how to be brave, confront situations, and stand for the truth, however difficult. I learned that standing [in your own] truth is always right. When you tell the truth, even if people who don’t like it today, would like it tomorrow.”

The National Endowment for Democracy 2006 award recipient from US President Bush, Taban had replaced veteran journalist and Gurtong co-founder Jacob Akol as AMDISS chair, while veteran journalist and The Citizen co-founder Nhial Bol was elected AMDISS Board secretary, giving Ayaa the chance to learn from seasoned journalists and, years later, walk in those journalists’ footsteps vis media advocacy.

As a young staffer taking notes at the AMDISS Board meetings, Ayaa learned to appreciate diplomacy from Akol. “He is a person who is very diplomatic. He cares so much about his words. He cares so much about professionalism. He said advocacy is about diplomacy. You have to select your words very, very well, and you have to be diplomatic.”

And she learned hustling from Bol, who, like Alfred Taban, quit journalism to join Parliament. “When he wants something done, he wants it today, not tomorrow. And he could go to any office; he doesn’t follow bureaucracy in offices. He would just say, ‘I want to see so and so and I want it now; we need to do this and we need to do it today. He is an action man’.”

Now playing key roles in media advocacy as chair of the Female Journalists Network, Principal of the Media Development Institute, and presidential appointee to the Board of the Media Authority, Ayaa had joined AMDISS as a young media development officer, playing mostly a media monitoring role at a time of intense lobbying efforts for the media laws.  The AMDISS Board beamed with veteran media entrepreneurs, including names, such as Veronica Lucy, Juba Post’ Charles Rehan, New Times Richard Mogga, and Sudan Insight’s John Gachie.

“The reason I am today is because of them,” Ayaa says. “AMDISS of yesterday built the AMDISS of today. Even government, through the ministry of Information, they refer people who want to know more about the media sector to AMDISS because of the strength that AMDISS has because of those personalities that we had. They laid a good foundation for AMDISS. Even when most have left, us who they have mentored are building on what they put together.”

At a time of intense advocacy for the government to pass the media laws, including the Access to Information Law, public broadcasting and

Gachie always extolled the virtue of humanizing advocacy.

“Security personnel are also human; Take a risk and meet them about what you want. Then, explain the issue in a manner that they understand because all of us have a common goal of bringing peace to South Sudan,” Ayaa says.

But one needs to build and constantly water these relationships. “Sometimes you also have to visit them, make them friends. Don’t just go to people when you need help from them. Check on them, how they are doing. You are advocating even for them because they also need to be able to express themselves.

At the time, AMDISS, supported by International Media Support, advocated for the enactment of the media laws that would set up an independent complaints mechanism, regulate the public broadcaster, and access to information. The bills were presented to Parliament in 2006. But the bills were once presumed lost. Parliamentarians said that the bills had been sent to the president. The presidency announced the bills were never received. “The bills were somewhere on the way to the president’s office.”

Apparently, some people didn’t like some articles within the bills. For instance, defamation was changed from a civil to a criminal issue. But media activists understood that advocacy was a gradual process. “You may demand something today, but you won’t get it today, you don’t get it this year, and, may be, you won’t get it when you are still alive, but your children will get it,” Ayaa says.

In the end, AMDISS got the president to accent to the bills in 2014. “The skill that has helped me succeed in my job is approach — I am a very humble person and my approach is humble. I’m able to deal with all kinds of people, including difficult ones.”

As veteran journalists inspired her advocacy, Ayaa’s supportive day-to-day supervisor made growth possible. At the time, AMDISS had a small secretariat. Michael Duku, who as Ayaa did, rose – later from Center Manager to Executive Director, headed it.

“Michael really mentored me a lot. I was very, very raw because I didn’t have the experience with partners, programming,” Ayaa says.

At one point, Ayaa was tasked to attend a UNMISS meeting at the UN House. The driver was sick. “Michael dropped me. That was something very unique – a boss actually dropping a junior staff, and he was patient enough to even wait in the car.”

Other times, her immediate boss, intending to empower staff to explore their full potential, assigned her to meetings that he was meant to attend. “He did that so that I could learn, gain confidence, and explore my potential. At some point I became more known than him. Some people thought that I was the Executive Director of AMDISS because of the way he put me at the front and himself at the back.

STARTING OUT

For Ayaa, media and media advocacy were never childhood dreams. She didn’t have concrete dreams about her future. But her father influenced most of her way of life. “My dad didn’t go far in education, but he was born a leader. He had strong leadership skills. Sometimes, after dinner we would sit so that he would tell stories, talked to us about how we should live with people, help people, how to read, how to write. I used to like writing. Sometimes, I could even write on the toilet walls. Everywhere you could find my name.”

Never one to stop learning, Ayaa juggled work, family, and school to earn a bachalor’s degree in Mass Communication and a certificate in media management. “Always discover what you love and what you can do best and build technicality in those areas,” Ayaa says. “Nobody can bring down a technical person.”

In 2019, the Board of AMDISS named her the Principal of the Media Development Institute. Established in 2014, South Sudan’s premier journalism training center has graduated five cohorts, recruited in a highly competitive selection process for a nine-month journalism certificate program.

Yet, contracted briefly by Journalists for Human Rights as a gender media mentor in seven radio stations, in 2018, she realized that the problems beset by journalists were extreme. There were hardly any female journalists in the institutions. Women were hardly covered because, the male journalists told her, women issues are better covered by women journalists. The few female journalists were demoralized and beset by family issues.

Ayaa met other media women leaders – Catholic Radio Network’s Mary Ajith, Radio Communities’s Josephine Achiro, and Juba Monitor’s Ann Namiriano only to discover that the three shared her plans to do something. She then called a meeting of female journalists, laying the ground for co=founding the Female Journalists’ Network (FJN) to empower female journalists through training and to promote gender equality in and through the media. As FJN interim chair, Ayaa initiated a young women mentorship program where veteran women leaders have breakfast conversations with young journalists.

“I don’t like anyone who looks down upon a woman or anyone who treats a woman as an object. I am a mother, a wife and a sister, and I embrace the fact that I am a woman,” Ayaa says.

A mother of three – one of whom died two days after suffering vaccination related complications, Ayaa has dedicated herself to advocacy for the media, often working until the last day of labor.

“When it is time for work I have to do all my responsibilities; I list all of my tasks until I finish,” says Ayaa. “At home, as a wife and a mother, I must have time for the children, cook food, go to funerals and family meetings; if you don’t go they (the family) will say you are proud. I always balance my time.”

LAST WORD

Her advice to women?

“Be leaders, not bosses: when some are criticized, they become arrogant. Take criticism the way you take appreciation. As women, let us stop jealousy among ourselves. Let us, instead, encourage each other as that is the only way to prosper. Women should train themselves to become hard working and take responsibility. Women should be good leaders when they are given positions of leadership. A leader is not a boss; a leader is someone who ensures that people one leads feel the leader’s presence. A leader is like a teacher; a teacher must guide people and must open up so that others can share ideas.”