In the words of Youstina Michele: “I want to provide women with awareness-raising … to help them make the right decisions and lead happy and stable lives”

Youstina Michele, a 29-year-old media creator, has been working in media for six years with the aim of providing a voice for women and raising awareness through content creation. She has worked as a TV and radio presenter on local channels, a social media content creator, and a writer in local newspapers. She’s now expanding her portfolio to include movies, following UN Women’s scriptwriting training.

I want to provide women with awareness-raising content that portrays the experiences of others to help them make the right decisions and lead happy and stable lives.

Throughout my career, I’ve seen how the media field is male dominated. I believe that the role of women is extremely important as they add their perspective to the issues covered, which men cannot do as they are not in our shoes.

When I watch movies or series written by women, I can easily relate to them as opposed to those by men scriptwriters. That’s the type of content I aim to develop too: relevant content that women can easily relate to.

I was very excited to join UN Women’s scriptwriting training and felt special to be selected out of the thousands who applied. During the training, I learned how to write a smooth-flowing script to ensure a common theme and engaging sequence throughout a film or series.

The training was different than any other I’d taken before because it was based on hands-on work, which was extremely engaging and informative.

As the training focused on enhancing participants’ analytical skills and cultivating their critical eye, my colleagues and I would watch movies and analyse them. We also developed several scripts that were presented to directors for further guidance.

One of the scripts I worked on, with a team of 10 members, was about women’s experiences with divorce and the struggles they face afterwards, in terms of emotional and financial challenges. I was very proud when the script was chosen by a director to be produced and this encouraged me to continue working on myself and enhancing my portfolio.

After completing the training, I’ve now gained the habit of always having a notebook on-hand and writing down any ideas that come to mind for scripts. I’m now working independently on writing scripts for movies that tackle social issues and hoping to one day see my name on the big screen.”

The scriptwriting training Youstina joined was part of a wider set of creative industry trainings o delivered by Arascope in cooperation with Media-Arts for Development. It falls under the regional joint programme “Promoting Productive Employment and Decent Work for Women in Egypt, Jordan and Palestine,” which is implemented by UN Women and the International Labour Organization, in partnership with the National Council for Women and the Ministry of Manpower, with the support of the Swedish International Development Agency.

Through this activity, 100 distinguished women trainees got internship opportunities and 30 selected trainees were divided into teams that produced three women-led documentaries portraying stories through women’s eyes. The documentaries have been submitted to the upcoming edition of the Aswan International Women’s Film Festival.