CLIENT: US Embassy, Lilongwe

Project: Presentation Training

"You are the presentation, not powerpoint" was the mantra for these trainings. We were commissioned to coach fifty embassy staff from various departments on how they could improve their presenting skills. Working in small groups, the initial sessions were concise, focused and highly interactive with further follow-up sessions conducted six weeks later to reinforce and practice the new skills. 

CLIENT: The Polytechnic, University of Malawi (UNIMA)

Project: Lecturing in TV Journalism

The Polytechnic runs a 3-year Journalism BA. We are teaching 2nd & 3rd years TV news reporting & video journalism focusing on scripting, planning, story development and basic camerawork. Since few students have access to TV or internet at home, only about ten percent had ever seen a TV news broadcast before we began. It's a steep but thrilling learning curve for us all.

CLIENT: Thrive Partners Consulting For Opportunity Bank International

Project: Micro Loans. Mid-term Evaluation

Opportunity Bank runs a Scottish Government funded project helping businesswomen in Malawi's SME sector to move from group to individual loans. For the mid-term report, Thrive asked us to use our journalistic skills to interview a number of businesswomen to better understand the obstacles, and in particular any social barriers, they face in taking out individual loans. The interviews were written up as case studies and the information used to inform the key recommendations of the technical evaluation.

CLIENT: Malawi - Liverpool Wellcome Trust (MLW)

Project: Journalism Mentoring & Training

MLW has a large medical research facility in Blantyre. It works with Malawian journalists to produce health and science stories by running an 'in residence' programme. We are training and mentoring those journalists, helping them to identify strong science and health stories, connect 'the science' to 'the people', and produce well-informed stories for local broadcast and publication. 

CLIENT: British High Commission, Lilongwe

Project: Investigative Journalism Workshops for Opening of Tenthani Centre for Media Excellence

Malawi has a history of strong investigative journalism, but when Raphael Tenthani, Malawi's leading investigative muckraker, died in a car crash in 2015, a significant gap was left in the industry. The High Commission asked us to design and deliver a week of IJ courses and workshops in collaboration with the Head of Journalism at the Polytechnic.

CLIENT: College of Medicine & SMMHEP

We devised a set of media campaigning workshops with Mzati Nkolokosa, a veteran Malawian journalist, aimed at mental health organisations working in Southern Africa. The training was delivered at Malawi's 6th Annual Mental Health Research and Practice Development Conference held in March 2016. 

The workshops explained how to plan and implement a simple campaign to influence policy makers, disseminate information and challenge stigma. Participants also learnt how to engage journalists, prepare for an interview, deliver campaign messages and develop case studies to support those messages.

CLIENT: Syrian Platform for Peace 

Supported by International Alert, the Platform brings together UK-based Syrian organisations and individuals to promote and build lasting peace in Syria.Through the spring of 2015, we attended meetings with the Platform and assisted in the creation of an annual communications plan.

CLIENT: National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary Forces - London Mission

Over a period of six months, we worked with Syrian Coalition's London Mission to establish and implement a UK media strategy. We provided training and mentoring on how to run routine media operations & campaigns, advised the Coalition’s leadership on how to build credibility in UK and helped to instigate and maintain networks with Syrian Diaspora organisations, London-based NGO’s and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.