By Foday Moriba Conteh
One of the Judges of the National Anti-Corruption Creative Competition 2020, Dr. Williette Princess Ransolina Oluwakemi James is a Sierra Leonean journalist, lecturer and Gender advocate. Since 2010, she has interspersed her journalistic work with gender advocacy in the media. Williette has practiced as a journalist for twenty years. She got part of her training in journalism at the Sky High Magazine in Walthamstow, London, and has benefitted from several other media and gender trainings nationally and internationally.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honours degree (First Class) in Mass Communication, a Master of Arts in Gender Studies, a Master of Philosophy in Mass Communication and a Ph.D in Communication and Media Studies (specializing in Media and Gender) all from Fourah Bay College (FBC), University of Sierra Leone (USL).
Williette has practised as a journalist in almost all forms of media.
Williette held the position of News and Current Affairs Manager at the ABC Television Africa, Sierra Leone. She also served as Managing Editor of Salone Times Newspaper, Consultant Editor of the Premier News Newspaper and NewsWatch Magazine, Executive Producer of the Voice of Children, UNICEF Project, on Radio Mount Aureole, and Consultant Editor of the Audit Service Sierra Leone where she edited the Auditor General’s Report and other Performance Audit Reports.
She has written and published several articles and won the Sierra Leone Independent Media Awards in 2005 for Best Television Programme Night Line and Best Gender Reporting (2007 & 2008) for the stories (Secret Pains of a Village Mother 1 and 2) published in Salone Times Newspaper. In 2018, Williette published a story titled The EBK Effect. That article won the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists Award for Best Political Story, making her the first female journalist to win that category in Sierra Leone.
Williette James has been lecturing full-time at the Mass Communication Department, FBC. USL, since 2006 and she is now the Head of Department. She is also the first Female President of the Academic Staff Association of Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone and first President of the Academic Staff Association of the three constituent colleges of the University of Sierra Leone (FBC, IPAM and COMAHS).
At the University, she has established the Women Leaders Initiative; a forum that provides training for female university students to pursue their leadership initiatives and take up leadership roles in society.
Williette is married to Brian James, with three boys.
