Serrekunda, The Gambia
$150 - $200 / Day
Momodou L Jaiteh, is a Gambian-born multimedia journalist, researcher and founder of Kaba Communications, a production company registered in Banjul, The Gambia. Until last October, Mr. Jaiteh was a staff member of the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC), the body tasked with drafting Gambia’s new supreme law serving as one of the Note takers/Transcribers. He is a professional journalist with a background on multimedia and progressively working in the media since June 1994 at different levels in the Gambia and abroad. Currently, Jaiteh is the Gambian representative of the Dakar-based Pan African News Agency (www.panapress.com), a continental wire service publishing in: English, French, Arabic and Portuguese. He does international freelance reporting job for Bhekisisa Mail and Guardian (http://bhekisisa.org) based in South Africa and the humanitarian news agency formerly known as IRIN News (http://www.irinnews.org). Prior to this, Jaiteh worked in Dakar, Senegal for the Pan African Radio, Convergence FM as Senior English Program Producer as well as a Senior Program Producer for Radio Alternative Voice for Gambians which was a project implemented by former exiled Gambian journalists in Dakar, Senegal. Meanwhile, before taking up international assignments, Jaiteh first started off with local newspapers like The Point and Daily Observer as a reporter and rising to the rank of editor at Point Newspaper. He was the correspondent for Associated Press (AP), an American news wire, as well as Pan African News Agency in The Gambia from 2000 to 2007 when he was forced into exile in neighboring Senegal because of his work. Jaiteh has also engaged on human rights activism since 2000 with special interest on: Media Freedom, Freedom of Expression, Consumerism, Peace, gender and child rights issues. As rights activists, he worked with sub-regional bodies like the Ghana-based Media Foundation for West Africa and Dakar-based rights body, FAMDEV among others. He is also a consumer rights activist and the current Secretary General of Gambia's Consumer Protection Consortium, the apex consumer rights body in the West African nation. Jaiteh covered several meetings held both locally and internationally in Africa, Europe, Asia and other continents of the world.
This was one of my feature stories commissioned and first published by Bhekisisa Mail and Guardian (http://bhekisisa.org) based in South Africa. The story prove to be very popular among editors as several media outlets later reproduced it both locally and internationally. I conceived the story idea and later developed it through up to editing stage.
Returning home from nine-year-long exile in Senegal shortly after the fall of the 22-year-old dictatorship in Gambia in 2017, I came up with the story idea and later developed in 2018 for Bhekisisa. After its publication, it went viral with many news media reproducing it and the story was later translated into French with some media outlets in France republishing it.
I carried out an investigation into human trafficking and illegal or irregular migration in the Gambia and later came up with the piece following an interview with a victim who was ready to break silence on the subject which was like a taboo. After the publication of the story by Panapress, some local newspapers later picked it up as well as some media outlets across Africa and beyond.
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