Deadline: November 5, 2021
Applications for the AWJP/ICFJ West African Gender-based Violence Reporting Fellowship 2022 are now open. Journalists and writers from Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal are invited to apply for a specialised program that aims to examine and expose under-reported topics of violence against women.
The Africa Women Journalism Project, an initiative supported by the International Centre for Journalists in partnership with the Ford Foundation West Africa, has opened a call in Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal to increase the capacity of women journalists to understand the complexity of gender-based violence and exploitation and empower them to cover gender-related issues. Through its program, the AWJP is looking for 60 women journalists interested in revealing the scale of gender-based violence in the target countries.
Benefits
- Successful participants will be able to apply for a 9-month Fellowship which will begin from January 2022 to September 2022.
- Fellows will receive microgrants to produce data-driven and collaborative reporting projects.
- Successful Fellows will also be eligible to apply for larger grants to support the production of more complex, data-driven and investigative reporting projects.
- Fellows will also be eligible to apply for grants to lead peer-to-peer training sessions in their own newsrooms where they can share their skills and knowledge thereby establishing themselves as experts in the field.
- Fellows will be assigned an experienced story mentor and will convene for regular webinars featuring experts in different fields to enable them to examine gender-related issues of relevance to their communities and how the pandemic is impacting development policies.
- Fellows’ stories will be shared on partner newsroom websites, with links on the Africa Women’s Journalism Project’s site as well.
- Successful Fellows and their newsroom affiliates will commit to publishing the stories on a monthly basis.
Stipend
- The 12 selected fellows will receive a stipend of USD$150 per month (dependent on producing a story a month) to support their reporting over the duration of the fellowship.
Eligibility
- Open only to women journalists in Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal;
- Applicants must be working journalists with at least three years of full-time, professional journalism experience.
- Applicants may be affiliated or freelance journalists.
- Applicants must speak, read and write English or French fluently in order to fully participate in and benefit from the Fellowship.
- All applicants must submit one story about under-explored issues concerning or intersecting with gender-based violence.
- Applicants will commit to publishing at least one story which they will produce within a month of completing the information and training sessions.
- Applicants must attend all webinars/information/training sessions scheduled during the program.
- Applicants who are successful in the Fellows’ selection process will commit to participating in monthly conversations with their assigned mentor.
- Successful applicants will be required to submit a blog of a minimum of 250 words about their experience and learnings from the program for publication on the partners’ and the AWJP websites.
Story Requirements
- The story must deal with gender-based violence in either of the targeted countries (Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal).
- The story must be relevant to these countries and to the West African region.
- Must be well-written and compelling
- Must abide by the highest journalistic standards, eg multi-sourced
- Utilise data to effectively tell the story
- Include images/videos/graphics
- In-depth, investigative stories that provide new information or have a unique angle on the issue will be an advantage.
- Each story must be published within a month of receipt of the story grant and at the end of the information sessions.
Evaluation Criteria
The applications will be evaluated based on the following:
- relevance of the presented story
- feasibility, originality of the piece
- motivation expressed in the application and journalistic approach.
Application
Complete the application form in full no later than November 5, 2021.
For more information, visit AWJP.
