May 22nd, 2021

This week’s highlights

  • JHR announces winner of 2021 Indigenous Youth Reporter Award
  • Save the date: Night4Rights 2021 slated for October 20!
  • JHR’s Misinformation Project announces Call for Proposals
  • Test your human rights knowledge with our weekly quiz!
  • Information Saves Lives: Stories about the impact of COVID-19 from Iraq, Uganda and South Africa
  • Meet our new staff, Eimear O’Leary-Barrett

JHR announces winner of
2021 Indigenous Youth Reporter Award

Winner Shelby Lisk with nominees Chezney Martin and Oscar Baker III, and judge and journalist Tanya Talaga

 

Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) is pleased to announce Kanyen’kehá:ka photographer, filmmaker, and journalist Shelby Lisk as the winner of its 2nd Annual Award for Outstanding Work by an Indigenous Youth Reporter. Lisk has been recognized for her story ‘For our children: How families are passing down Indigenous languages’, published by TVO.org.

The award was announced on Wednesday, May 19, at a virtual ceremony in which eminent Indigenous journalists and writers Tanya Talaga, Karyn Pugliese, Angela Sterritt, and Ryan McMahon also spoke about the evolution of Indigenous journalism. Watch the replay of the event here.

Talking about the winning piece, Talaga had said, “Your work really is such a leader. You brought in four different languages in your piece. Seeing the language in your story filled us all with so much heart.”

Read the winner’s remarks and learn more about the award here.

The Indigenous Reporter Award is supported by the RBC Foundation as part of RBC Future Launch.

Save the date: Night4Rights 2021
slated for October 20!

 

The Night for Rights will take place at the Brickworks Pavilion, 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. To purchase tickets, please contact [email protected].

 

 

JHR’s Misinformation Project
announces Call for Proposals

 

As part of the Misinformation Project, JHR is launching a call for proposals to support Canadian news organizations’ coverage of online misinformation during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The bursaries will provide successful applicants with a one time grant to produce original and timely reporting on stories related to online misinformation.

Canadian news organizations, journalism professionals and journalism students studying in Canada who have received JHR’s training and are interested in investigating the issues, events and tools covered in the training sessions should apply.

Click here for more information.

 

Test your human rights knowledge
with our weekly quiz!

 

We’re moving into the final weeks of the MMFC challenge, and are proud to see the interest and engagement in human rights issues around the world.

The month-long quiz series, launched on World Press Freedom Day, tests participants’ knowledge of human rights challenges and successes in the 12 host countries of the Mobilizing Media for COVID-19 project, while sharing some inspiring insights and stories of change emerging from MMFC and earlier JHR projects.

Next week, the quiz will be focused on Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone. You can get a head start on the quiz here!

 

Information Saves Lives: Stories about the impact of COVID-19 from Iraq, Uganda and South Africa

 

As part of JHR’s Mobilizing Media to Fight COVID-19 (MMFC) project, over 200 journalists across 12 countries are publishing stories with accurate public health information and about the impact of COVID-19 on human rights, especially the rights of women and girls.

 

From Iraq:

MMFC training continues throughout the program’s host countries, including Iraq, Kurdistan, where journalists were trained on human rights journalism, gender-sensitive reporting, and the control of mis/disinformation, all in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Watch glimpses from the April training session here.

 

From Uganda:

Covid-19 Lockdown Drives Domestic Violence Cases To A New High
Article by Jael Namiganda, published in The Community Agenda on May 20, 2021

 

 

Excerpts below:

“Namiro Sarah, married to a carpenter in Kiwatule Central Zone and owns a small restaurant says when the government introduced the lockdown, her husband’s drinking problem intensified because he was idle all the time. Sarah stressed that her husband always beat her every time he came home so drunk and yet demanded and took the money she had made from her. “I tried to support my family but my husband always beat me up and took all my earning from me to go and drink more, the problem I faced was I could not go anywhere because the transport system was stopped”.

Kibirige Paul the Kiwatule LC1 Chairperson says that he got a number of gender-based violence cases. He referred some to police and handled some with support from the area woman councilor. They also sensitized the community about gender-based violence.

According to the Annual Crimes Report 2020, a total of 17,664 cases of Domestic Violence were reported to Police compared to 13,693 reported in 2019, giving a 29% increase. A total of 1,359 cases were taken to court, out of which 400 cases secured convictions, 06 cases were acquitted, 88 cases were dismissed and 864 cases were still pending in court while 6,207 cases were still under investigation. A total of 18,872 people were victims of Domestic Violence, of whom 3,408 were male adults, 13,145 were female adults and 1,133 were male juveniles while 1,186 were female juveniles.”

Read the full story here.

 

From South Africa:

 

 

Viewers in South Africa enjoyed a comprehensive discussion on the country’s current socio-economic challenges in the latest episode of Spotlight.

Featuring Carilee Osborne of the Institute for Economic Justice, the episode focused on strategies for combatting the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on employment levels and the consequences of diminishing social protection provided by the government.

Spotlight is a recorded video series, featuring a rotating panel of journalists and other experts, brought to viewers by JHR’s MMFC program in partnership with Media Monitoring Africa and Sound Africa.

Watch the latest episode of Spotlight here.

 

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

 

 

 

 

Staff Profile: Eimear O’Leary Barrett

 

Eimear O’Leary Barrett

 

 

Job title: Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist

Eimear O’Leary-Barrett has degrees from the University of Oxford and McGill University, and 10 years’ experience in data analytics in both the public and the private sector.

What motivated you to work for JHR?

JHR’s work is incredibly exciting both here in Canada and elsewhere, and I am very enthusiastic about bringing to light the impact that media coverage and representation can have in creating real change in people’s lives.

What do you hope to achieve at JHR?

I hope to illuminate the mechanisms through which JHR’s projects are having those impacts, and create learning feedback loops for the organization to inform future programme design.

 

 

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