How Do You Say No to The Church? Josephine Achiro Finds Out, You Don’t

A graduation convocation to attend at which she was chair. A flight to take to a donor meeting. And getting fired. All in one day. For Josephine Achiro, December 2016 is etched memory.

BY AYEN ACHOL DENG
This reporting is sponsored by the Norwegian People’s Aid through the Female Journalists Network as part of a project to to uplift women’s voices in and through the media. Badru Mulumba is project editor

time

When Achiro requested her subordinate the finance manager for requisition forms, the manager was confused. “I thought you know. I was asked not to do anything in the name of the Radio again. I was asked to hand over my office.” In fact, the finance manager had been certain that his boss had advised the diocese to fire him because his firing letter alluded to that. Livid, Achiro picked all the financial documents and the checkbook and drove to the diocese and straight to the point. “Abuna, can you give me my (termination) letter?”

The priest asked, “Which one?” Achiro responded that terminating her subordinate without her consent meant that the diocese no longer trusted her as well. “He did not laugh,” Achiro recalls. “He opened the drawer, picked a letter, and gave it to me.”

It was no prank. Achiro decided to not read the letter there and then. After all, she was running late. She had been invited then elected chair – organizing committee of the Media Development Institute’s first graduation after she showed enthusiasm about the intern assigned to her station, Bakhita Radio. In fact, impressed by the abilities of that first class, Achiro, planned to recruit more journalists from that cohort, which was graduating day. Invited cabinet ministers, diplomats, and donors were already on way. She threw the letter into her car and drove to MDI, a journalism training institute of the Association for Media Development in South Sudan. She would later read the letter from home. The letter had been signed weeks back. She, too, had been fired. She was left with a single day to hand over office and vacate immediately. It was an ignoble exit for a rising star. The firing capped a long run with luck. Her entry into journalism – as was her rise – was a call from God. Figuratively. It had started when Sr. Cecilia, then Bakhita Radio Director, plucked Achiro, a high school certificate holder, from the church youth volunteer service, sent her to the Catholic Radio Network to receive some basic journalism experience and training, and recruited her as a reporter.

The job, at a radio named after Saint josephine Bakhita, was a major step for a girl who had toyed with the idea of returning to the village after high school. “I was thinking: if I go out of juba then what next? Who is going to support me,” she says. “I was also calculating, if I get out of Juba what will happen to my siblings?” Her siblings? Her eldest and youngest brother who were in Juba and whom Achiro lived with. She considered herself her late mother’s deputy, playing a motherly role, in their lives. In fact, years later, when the father sent Achiro to represent him at his youngest son’s graduation in Uganda, the brother told the congregation that he was graduating because of Achiro. “That made me strong and gave me more strength of doing whatsoever I was doing and supporting my family and my friends.” It also inspired her to return to school – a promise she had made to herself when she left high school – joining the Catholic University of South Sudan.

When Sr. Cecilia was leaving South Sudan, she was on the lookout for a national replacement. The position of deputy director was also created. Achiro was at university when Sr. Cecilia called, as Achiro remembers it: “Josephine, I know you love work. You can be the rightful deputy director because I know you are going to help, but again I want you to have time for yourself because if I give you this assignment, it is going to stop you from going to university. So you first focus on your university.”

The job went to her colleague, Melania Itto, one of the first female journalists in the south and a co-founder, in 2008, of the Association of Media Women in South Sudan, an association that, unfortunately, hit hard times when its indefatigable, bike-riding chairperson, brain trust, and key founder and chair, Apollonia Mathia, passed on in a motorbike accident.

YOU ARE OUR DAUGHTER

Achiro responded that she had no problem with or without the position. But what she told Sr. Cecilia next showed that she saw herself rising. “I want to be like you.”  Why? “Because during the time of Sister the radio was performing well. The staff were working as one team. Everything was ok. The radio had a lot of funding. We didn’t lack anything. When the mzee was brought in, I don’t know, maybe because he is man, some donors also withdraw. Things began to fall apart.”

Partly, the media environment was deteriorating – thanks to the war. In 2014, the church dropped the axe, firing MD Albino and his deputy, Melania. “Josephine, the diocese wants you to go (meet them) and you are going to be the next director,” the late Albino Tokwaro said, as Josephine recalls. Achiro trembled. “It was a total shock of my life. I could not say anything. I was shivering. I was like “Oh, my God. What just happened?”

The previous day, Achiro had just received assignment from a newly arrived nonprofit, Search for Common Ground. As communications officer designate, the program manager had asked her to mobilize journalists for a visit to the country by its director. Achiro had not seen the church coming and was not prepared for the words from the Bishop. “Josephine, we are giving you this opportunity.” Achiro was split. “I already applied somewhere. I am going to challenge myself in a different field, I mean different organization, and what that organization is going to offer me, Bakhita cannot pay me.” But the Bishop knew what points to press. “Josephine, you are our daughter. You grew up in the Church. The church still needs your service. Why not? We need you now.”

That did it. “So I was, like: ok, now this is wisdom. I was silent for some time and then I said, yes, it is okay. I will take the responsibility.”

She prepared to call Search for Common Ground to tell them she was not going there anymore. Instead, Search for Common Ground withdrew the offer. “Sorry, we are not going to take you. You know we have an MOU signed with the Catholic Radio Network; we are not supposed to take any staff from CRN.” Though Achiro had decided to stay at the radio, that rejection hurt. Over the years, Achiro tried to piece it all together. For one, she found out that an SFCG official had divulged the plans to recruit her to another CRN official who told SFCG that their MOU didn’t allow poaching staff.

Achiro threw all her energy into Bakhita. “So when I came in, the Radio was completely zero. It was completely zero.” She repeats for emphasis. “First of all, we were closed by the security because of some news articles.” When National Security Service gave Bakhita a go ahead to reopen, the radio transmitter mysteriously blew.  “Meaning, I took up Bahkita when there was no machine. The Radio was off air. The day we were to re-launch the radio the transmitter got burned. There was no back up transmitter. I started from zero. Bahkita was also having zero in its (bank) account.”  She approached the Catholic Radio Network. CRN gave Bakhita USD5, 000 cash and a backup transmitter. What she did next with the USD 5,000 possibly changed the station’s fortunes. She told her staff, owed salary arrears, that she was going to use the money to buy gas. All of it. “If we have fuel everything will be fine.” If the radio was on air, donors would return and announcements on radio would bring in some funding. Barely a month later, Achiro chanced on a USAID call (through Internews) for proposals for media funding. Bakhita applied, receiving funding for a year. She was on a roll. “That gave me hope that Bahkita was back and doing wonders. That was the time that I knew that my dream to become like Sister Cecilia was true because the radio went back to its origins. We were doing our things like Sister Cecilia was doing. We had good collaboration with our partners. The staff, we were one team. I just loved it. We were okay.”

Then December 2016 happened and she was out on the street.

NOT FULLY BEATEN

While she headed Bakhita, UNESCO invited community radio station managers and directors to form a Radio for Peace Network. Then UNESCO communications officer Lydia Gachungi, giving the example of COMNET in Kenya, asked the station chiefs to unite if they hoped to get financing. A steering committee with Achiro as Secretary General and Good News Radio’s the late Norbet Otieno as chair was formed. Other committee reps were the directors of Radio Jonglei, Radio Yambio, and Radio Emmanuel. The idea stalled.

Now fired, Achiro dusted the idea, hired a lawyer, and registered a radio community network to lobby for funding to support community radios’ operational costs and capacity building. With funding through UNESCO, Achiro spent years traversing the country doing just this.

NEVER HAD A HOUSE MAID

After the COMNET chairperson passed on, the male-dominated board wanted Achiro out. Achiro figures that sexism played a part. That is ironic because she is apparently a fervent traditionalist when it comes to sexual roles. In fact, if you are a Betty Friedan mold feminist, you might get depressed. She doesn’t believe that the corporate roles in any way should diminish women’s traditional homemaker or housewife roles. “I always tell him (husband) two weeks before my travel,” she said. “When there’s money, we travel together.” She has never had a maid. “People say, ah sayhi mara de gi rakubu fi beit?” You don’t have a maid at home? “I don’t have a house girl and this is something that I am very much proud of. My husband does not like the idea of a house girl.” She shops on her way home from work and, at night, mops the house and does the laundry. “I am very proud of that and that is the reason I do not have any big problem with my husband because he comes home and gets food, he comes home and his house is clean, he comes home and he has clean clothes. So what else does he want from me?” Her advice to women? “Balance your work with your social life. Balance your work with your home life. If you fail to do one, you will be a failure. If you have (husband’s) family staying with you, you are lucky; make good relations with them. You don’t need to pay people off to love you.  You advise them accordingly and also help them in the homework.  And things will be ok. If you say ‘I’m working. I’m MD of Bahkita radio, and I have money, and I buy things, and they have to do (what I want)’, it will be like you are forcing them; these are your sisters-in-law.” Despite apparently giving men everything, she still feels that some decisions against her were because she is a woman. Some men are not willing to see a woman call the shorts at work. Fortunately, for her, she always bounces back. One reason? Perhaps it’s her infectious energy.

HOW DO YOU SAY NO TO THE CHURCH?

On October 26, 2021, the church came calling again. Josephine Achiro bounced back as the Managing Director of Bakhita Radio, following a 5-year absence. How do you say No to the church? Josephine doesn’t. “I am glad that I am also back and things are getting back.” And Bahkita, too, is back, open from 6 to 10pm, instead of 7am to 4pm. Things had fallen apart in her absence. “The radio began having a lot of issues, and challenges and all those stuffs, I don’t know what happened because management style differs from one to the other.” It is not easy. In June Bakhita was off air for a week or so. No gas.

But she is glad that she is in an industry that she loves. “Personally, I had wanted to be a doctor, this was my dream since I was young. But I think when I reached senior two, I dropped (that dream). I hated to become a doctor, because I was not good at mathematics, I was not good at chemistry and physics. Instead I was good at geography and history.” And storytelling was a pleasure. “When someone tells me something, I report exactly the way I was told.” Once, while she mopped the house as her mother fetched water from the stream, a neighbor brought a rumor that another girl had slept with a boyfriend. Achiro sat her two girlfriends together and repeated what one of the two had said. The girls fought. The parents intervened. Achiro’s father, after listening to the backstory, said he wished all children would emulate Achiro in creating opportunities for people to stop speaking ill of others. Despite the storytelling skills, she never wanted to become a journalist or a teacher. “It was not in my head, but I think I ended up being all of them.” And she owes it all to one woman, Sr. Cecilia. “She has done a lot in my life.” Sr. Cecilia would call her into office and tutor her to correct any mistakes. “So she mentored me and made me who I am today.” When Achiro was appointed, Sr. Cecilia commented. “Josephine, I believe in you. I know you can do it.” The words lifted her up. “So those are some of the things that give me power and strength, to continue the work I am doing today.”

OPEN TO CRITICISM

One of her strengths is positive attitude to criticism. Complain about her? “I listen to you with an open heart. Sometimes as a human I will get annoyed, but later I will sit, sleep, and reflect on what you have shared with me. I write down so many things you have shared with me. I also write down the way I look into what I am doing in my life and compare, there and then, the two lists.” She also values advice. “If I am doing well today it is not only me, Josephine. I have people around me, I have advisors, and I talk to people. Talking to people helps you do better. If you want to do something, share (the idea) with people. Yes, I know our society today is full of haters- people who can steal your idea and go and do the same thing that you talked about. It happens, and I have a lot of them. But again, not everyone is good with you, not everyone is bad. You need to study them.” On friends? Select only people who can make you better. Her advice to government? “I just want to say a journalist is a bridge between the people and the authorities of this country. We are the voice of the voiceless. So use as to make change in south Sudan. We are not enemies, instead we are helping, the government, we are helping the people, into compromise.”