Femina Hip

Femina Hip uses edutainment as its main approach and methodology, entertaining and educating audiences throughout Tanzania in formats that mirror youth culture and language. Real-life stories, role-modelling, and docudrama are central to the approach, as are interactive, participatory production processes - thereby giving a voice to ordinary people all over Tanzania.
Through the production of recurring, long-term media vehicles with national reach, Femina Hip aims to create a media platform enabling people to express themselves, share experiences, and learn. The central media product is Fema magazine. Produced and printed quarterly, the bilingual (English and Swahili) magazine is distributed to secondary schools, folk development colleges, and local government and civil society partners across Tanzania. The magazine content includes sections on all of Femina Hip's strategic agendas: sexual and reproductive health and rights, economic empowerment, citizen engagement, and youth connect. Every issue carries a theme campaign and is produced with content identified with partner organizations and gathered from different regions of Tanzania, highlighting various parts of the country and fostering a sense of "nationhood". Editorial collection is highly participatory: Approximately 100 youth from Femina Hip's Fema Clubs engage quarterly in youth reporting or contribute to the content with their own letters and stories.
Fema Clubs operate throughout every region of Tanzania in secondary schools, folk development colleges, and out of school ones run by Femina Hip's civil society partners. The Fema Clubs programme aims to create more focused engagement with the Fema Magazine content and to promote youth leadership, teamwork, volunteering, and life skills. Each school selects a teacher (mentor) who oversees and facilitates the activities and discussions in the Fema Clubs. Femina Hip trains these teachers in an active learning methodology. To stimulate Fema Clubs engagement, each magazine edition features "club challenge activities" to stimulate conversation and growth by engaging clubbers through debate, drama, and community/club projects - all fostering peer education. Femina Hip incentivises these activities with awards and recognition to motivate increased participation. Fema Clubs networks are reportedly identifying themes they are passionate about, mobilising their own funds, and putting on activities, festivals, and events that engage their peers and community leaders. For students who graduate from Fema Clubs and go on to university, Femina Hip offers a Fema University Network to facilitate continued engagement and participation with the platform.
Femina Hip's other media products - Fema TV and Fema radio, as well as Fema social media, reinforce and complement the messages in the magazine and extend the organisation's reach:

• The Fema TV Show has been on air since 2003, highlighting different themes and campaigns each season. Recorded "on the road" in different locations across Tanzania, the show has been hosted by a series of young role models. Some shows are shot on location in rural areas, allowing a wider public to share their experiences and giving voice to young people and communities who generally do not have the opportunity to access the airwaves. Each episode features young people, experts, celebrities, and politicians discussing critical - sometimes controversial - issues relating to youth lifestyles. Each show highlights youth stories and testimonials and incorporates comic elements to reinforce the messages. Youth Reporters from the Fema Clubs participate in each episode to help explore their communities by asking questions and seeking out interesting stories.
• The Ruka Juu TV Show (see Related Summaries, below), first aired in 2011, is an entrepreneurship competition produced every two years to promote Femina Hip's economic empowerment agenda. Six contestants from different regions compete for a 5 million tsh prize. Judges and the audience are involved in score setting. The season that aired in 2017 focused on agricultural value addition and processing and the role it can play in the economic empowerment of Tanzanian youth.
• The Fema Radio show, first aired in 2013, is produced in 3-month seasons each year. (Click on the video below to listen to one episode.) The show's content is crafted to echo other Femina Hip agendas that are implemented at the same time. The programme employs well-known presenters who drive the shows' content with the help of Fema Club Youth Reporters. In the past, the radio programme has been aired on national stations, but Femina Hip is focusing on local FM stations to reach a more diverse audience.
• Femina Hip promotes active communication between its team and audience, helping to further connect Tanzanian youth to the movement. The team has active conversations through its social media platforms (e.g., Facebook and Twitter), email and SMS (short messaging service, or text) speak-back system (Sema na Fema), which allows youth to directly connect with each other and with the Fema team members on a daily basis.

In the past, Femina Hip produced the Si Mchezo! ("No Joke" in Swahili) magazine and ran the chezasalama.com website (no longer in operation as of September 7 2022). Femina Hip has also produced a range of one-time publications and booklets on different aspects of HIV/AIDS including care and treatment, living positively, and how HIV affects children. Several of these are translations and cultural adaptations of publications from the Soul City Institute for Health and Development communication in South Africa, a partner of Femina operating a regional capacity-building programme. These publications aim to break the silence surrounding HIV/AIDS and reduce stigma and are distributed to organisations, local government, care and treatment clinics, and testing centres across Tanzania to reinforce their work.
For more information, visit:

• The Femina Hip website
• Femina Hip's Facebook page
• Femina Hip on Twitter
• Femina Hip on Instagram
• Femina Hip's YouTube channel

Youth, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, Economic Empowerment, Citizen Engagement, Gender Equality

According to the organisation, Femina Hip media products provide conduits for hard-hitting discussion and open talk on a broad range of contemporary themes and issues for men and women alike. Through a mix of mediums, it aims to enhance positive and democratic public debate, stimulate critical thinking and personal responsibility, and contribute to behaviour and social change in Tanzania.
Femina Hip started during the height of the HIV epidemic, so the focus was on HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention, as well as sexual and reproductive health and rights. The team pioneered "open talk" on these sensitive issues to meet the urgent need for sex education among youth in Tanzania. As time went on and the audience base grew, Femina Hip received more and more requests to cover topics like employment and money issues. Young women were particularly adamant, since without their own income, they had difficulties negotiating safe sex. Responding to the needs of the audience has always been a priority for Femina Hip, so, 10 years into Femina's journey, economic empowerment was added to the agenda.