Goodbye Canada, hello Africa!

This blog post will be decidedly less glamorous than the posts to follow, which I will be writing from sweaty internet cafes in Ghana, Malawi,  and, eventually, Liberia.

Nonetheless, I’d like to introduce myself here, and explain why I’m lucky enough to get the opportunity to travel to all those countries. I am jhr’s new overseas program coordinator, which means I am the face of jhr in Africa and, along with the help of head office staff, I am on the continent to ensure that our programs are running smoothly and that our staff on the ground are able to do their best work.

I will be working closely with the journalists that jhr sends to work in newsrooms in Africa and also with our media partners on the ground, and I cannot wait to relate their stories here on Jenny’s Dispatches, where I’ll be blogging regularly from Africa starting next week.

Though leaving my life in Canada behind isn’t altogether easy, I am brimming with excitement about being stationed in Ghana and working for jhr, an organization I have been following for years. Though I’ve only been in the position for a couple of weeks now, I feel as though I’ve been preparing for the job for years—I have an undergraduate degree in African Studies and am close finishing my masters in journalism from Ryerson University.

Last summer, I worked at a national newspaper in Uganda, which taught me to not only be a better journalist because of the enormous challenges we faced on the job (one phone for a newsroom of 20 journalists, shaky internet connections and general mistrust of the press by government sources) but also opened my eyes to the intense importance of the media in developing democracies. Every night, the bars in Kampala are packed with Ugandans talking about the day’s headlines. Journalism matters there—I witnessed firsthand the power of the press to hold politicians accountable, expose injustices and educate communities.

That power is not lost on us at jhr. In fact, it’s what drives us. And I can’t wait to start writing about how our programs on the ground help us achieve that, one human rights story at a time.