June 26th, 2021

This week’s highlights

  • How JHR is Mobilizing Media To Fight COVID-19 with YOUR help
  • Introducing the Indigenous Media Collaborative: Oscar Baker III
  • Save the Date: Night4Rights 2021 slated for October 20!
  • Apply for the Misinformation Project’s bursaries before July 5!

How JHR is Mobilizing Media To Fight COVID-19 with YOUR help

 

The Yakarr Football Academy team, whose football career has been interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic — Gambia Sports Wire

 

Throughout June, JHR supporters like yourself have been donating to our #InformationSavesLives campaign that is supporting our 12-country Mobilizing Media to Fight COVID-19 (MMFC) program in training journalists to report on human rights issues that are worsening in their communities during the pandemic.

Some of the latest stories from MMFC trainees are below:

  • In Uganda, the vaccination rate among urban refugees remains low due to lack of information about vaccine availability, fear of discrimination at health facilities and access issues caused by the government’s ban on public transport. Journalist Esther Makula sheds light on the issue here.
  • In Ghana, water scarcity in rural communities in the Upper West Region forces women and children to “compete with animals and reptiles for water for domestic use”, writes Prosper K. Kuorsoh in Modern Ghana.
  • In Mali, JHR media partner Radio Energy FM in Bamako invited the National Institute of Social Security’s Director for Registration Maiga Oumou Maiga and Head of Health Insurance Dr Mamadou Diallo to discuss the disproportionate job loss faced by women and how their inability to pay social contributions has a further adverse impact on their access to coverage for illness, maternity, death, etc. Read a recap of their talk here.
  • In Gambia, journalist Ebrima KB Sonko documents how COVID-19 has put a stop to the footballs dreams of the women’s team of the Yakarr Academy

Help us continue this essential work. When journalists shine the light on human rights abuses and injustices, it leads to actual, life-changing impact. You can read more about the MMFC program’s success stories here.

 

 

The above stories are part of the Mobilizing Media to Fight COVID-19 project funded by

 

 

 

Introducing the Indigenous Media Collaborative:
Oscar Baker III

 

JHR’s Solutions Journalism program is pleased to introduce the members of its new Indigenous Media Collaborative, a group of Indigenous journalists and media organizations that is producing a series of solutions journalism and human rights stories about land claims, Indigenous sovereignty, and #LandBack. This week, we speak to Oscar Baker III about why he wants to pursue stories on #Landback.

 

 

Oscar Baker III is Black and Mi’kmaw from Elsipogtog First Nation and is freelancing from his home in Indian Island. Baker has most recently written for Corporate Knights and Global News. He’s been in the industry for eight years and won the David Adams Richards non-fiction writing award in 2015. Baker was nominated for a National Magazine Award for personal journalism in 2019 for his story “A History of Violence,” which was published in The Deep Magazine.

 

Save the Date:
JHR’s Night4Rights is this October 20!

 

 

Night for Rights will take place at the Brickworks Pavilion in Toronto from 6pm-8pm, on October 20, 2021. This year, mindful of potential public health concerns, we’re putting on an extended cocktail party in an outdoor setting. We will have both on- and offline speakers and entertainment, and attendees can choose to attend either on- or offline. Tickets are $500 or $5000 for a group of 10. More details soon at www.night4rights.com!

 

 

Deadline approaching:
Apply for the Misinformation
Project’s bursaries before July 5!

 

Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) and 16 journalist trainers recently held a series of training workshops on media literacy and digital investigation for Canadian journalists. We are now offering one-time $3000 Story Grants. Successful applicants will receive a bursary to produce original and timely reporting on stories related to online misinformation.

Story topics can range from the impact of misinformation on the well-being of diverse communities in Canada to the spread of specific disinformation narratives to tips Canadians can use in order to identify misinformation online.

The Misinformation Project was organized by JHR and First Draft News in order to train journalists, media professionals and students in digital literacy skills.

If you or your newsroom would like to cover online misinformation or would like to explore how it is affecting Canadians, click here for more information. Deadline to apply is Monday, July 5, 2021.