Antonia Howard is female Journalist/News Anchor at Africa Young Voices who graduated from Fourah Bay College (FBC) in 2017 with a First Class Honours Degree in Mass Communications.
She officially started work in media on the radio in 2014. She started in a small community radio station called Radio Life Ventures which had a religious tilt to its editorial policy. She created, produced and presented a programme called Youth Enlightenment Hour; an interactive programme dealing with issues affecting youth especially teenage girls and how they can be addressed.
Other tasks that were being performed by Antonia include compiling stories and writing scripts for the news.
In 2015, she applied to do her internship at the Africa Young Voices Media Empire as part of the requirements for her undergraduate degree. During those five months, she worked in radio and television – presenting the news, and wrote for the newspaper. She also presented a current affairs programme called Perspectives on television. After completing her internship, she was given a six months contract as a full time reporter and news anchor.
After her contract expired, she was hired as the Senior News Anchor/Reporter graduating to the position of Content Supervisor in the Newsroom. She is currently the lead anchor for AYV’s Prime Time News and one of the presenters on the breakfast programme Wake Up Sierra Leone.
Antonia also produces the daytime news bulletins on television. Between Wake Up Sierra Leone at 8am and Prime Time News at 9pm, she covers news stories, edits news scripts and supervises all news content.
Prior to the 2018 elections and the Presidential Debate, Antonia created a series titled The Issues, which was a sub theme under AYV’s Sierra Leone Decides 2018 theme. The Issues was meant to “open the eyes” of politicians to things that needed to be addressed in Sierra Leone such as unemployment, inadequate/inefficient water and electricity supply, limited access to education among others.
It formed part of the content for the 7 minutes documentary aired during the Presidential Debate. Antonia had travelled across the country to gather stories which were then used to create a bigger documentary titled “Us Kayn Salon Yu Want”.
In 2012 she worked with the Playground Foundation in a fundraising event to raise funds for the construction of a playground for kids.
In 2016, she worked as an Ambassador for the Zonta Club; a cross national women’s group which promotes women’s empowerment. During that time, she mentored girls in junior secondary school, talking to them about the importance of education. The aim of the programme was to open the minds of young girls to a variety of career paths.
In 2017, Antonia served as an Ambassador for AYV television during the mudslide/flash floods disaster. She advocated for donations/aid for victims of the disaster through AYV, and eventually distributed the items received to the victims through the Office of National Security.
Antonia studied Music Theory and Piano for 8 years and she loves all forms of Art.