LOGO AFRICANEWS

Views and news on peace, justice and reconciliation in Africa

April 1996

CONTENTS

USAGE/ACKNOWLED

Contents can be freely reproduced with acknowledgements. The by-line should read: author/AFRICANEWS.
Send a copy of the reproduced article to AFRICANEWS.

EDITORIAL

Dear Friend,
AFRICANEWS is the initiative of a group of African Lay Christians. It wants to strengthen the Christian and African presence in the media world.
Its main goal is to express the African people's deep commitment to justice, peace and respect for creation. The Rwanda tragedy has highlighted the negative power of the mass media: locally they were used to foster hatred and to incite killings, internationally the media reinforced all worst prejudices against Africans, paying little or no attention to the background and with no attempt to a serious analysis of the facts. AFRICANEWS editorial staff wants to prove that the media can be used to promote peace and solidarity.
AFRICANEWS will focus on issues of human rights, peace making and peace keeping, reconciliation, emancipation of women, ecology, modernity and tradition, poverty and development, ecumenism and Church initiatives.
In particular AFRICANEWS expresses its preferential option for the poor. All news and their analysis will be given from the perspective of the African grassroots people, their struggle for freedom, dignity and justice.
The editorial staff of AFRICANEWS wants to cater for an audience made of three specific groups whose interest, involvement and passion for Africa overlap.
The first group is made up of movements and individuals based in Africa working for justice, peace and human rights. We have a list of more than 300 of them. To them we wish to offer a free platform for exchange of information. Many of these groups are involved in actions, programs and celebrations that are hardly known in other countries.

AFRICANEWS will be an instrument for networking. The Africa based mass media are the second group, especially the media that share our commitment to give an information oriented to Christian values and a positive vision of Africa. Since most of these media do not operate on a commercial basis, they do not have the financial means to get reliable news and articles of analysis from African sources. AFRICANEWS will offer them, free of charge, professionally written stories from all over Africa on the above mentioned topics. In our mailing-list we have about 150 such media institutions.
The third group consists of all the genuine friends of Africa wherever they are: opinion leaders, missionaries, journalists based in the West or the East, documentation centers, advocacy groups, justice and peace movements. They will help to change the negative image of Africa, which most media outside the continent present. To this group, institutions and people who live outside Africa, we ask to pay an air mail subscription fee of US$ 60 per year.

Who are the owners of AFRICANEWS?
They are: People for Peace in Africa, a group working for peace, justice and reconciliation which started in Nairobi in 1989 and has implemented programs in Kenya, Sudan, Somalia, Tanzania, Rwanda. Koinonia Media Centre, a media initiative of African lay people founded in Nairobi in 1995, with the purpose of promoting Christian values through the media. The publishers have no commercial interest, though they have planned AFRICANEWS to be self-supporting.

The staff is made up of professional journalists who offer their services during their spare time. The only rationale of AFRICANEWS is a service to Africa rooted in Gospel values.
AFRICANEWS will be published the 15th day of every month, and each issue will have a minimum of 8,000 words Do you wish to join us?
You can send us news, programs and opinions from your movement or association.
You can send us articles on the topics outlined.
You are also at liberty to use the news and views from AFRICANEWS in your own local media. Or you can simply read and help spread AFRICANEWS!

The Editorial Staff

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USAGE/ACKNOWLED
Contents can be freely reproduced with acknowledgements. The by-line should read: author/AFRICANEWS.
Send a copy of the reproduced article to AFRICANEWS.

AFRICANEWS - Koinonia Media Centre, P.O. Box 8034, Nairobi, Kenya
tel/fax: 254.2.560385 - e-mail: [email protected]
AFRICANEWS on line is by Enrico Marcandalli

PeaceLink 1996