Challenges

While female journalists are facing numerous challenges even at national level, it was not easy for the youth women to work as journalists at grassroots level. “Youth women in community media” was itself a very new idea, so it was truly challenging to introduce at local/rural level.Challeneges not only came from the families of the selected fellows; it was hard to convince even the community radio stations. There were challenges in every single step of implementation. By facing all those challenges, the program is running successfully under the coordination of BNNRC. The fact is that the rural women are not at all the topics/subjects of news, but they are now producing news and writing reports in media. A fellow journalist, Zinia Farzana in charge of Radio Mukti broadcast from Bogra said, “It is a very challenging job in a rural conservative society. People in this part of the world have different views on young unmarried girls. Men dominated society expects us to stay indoors. In spite of many social restrictions, we still stand up to work outdoor and that too, with men till late in the evening.”

However challenges still remain. One of the great challenges of this new program is to retain these young women in professional journalism sector.