The International Reporting Project (IRP) is pleased to announce a group reporting trip focusing on health and development issues in southern Africa from May 7-21, 2016.
South Africa, one of the continent’s largest nations, with a population of 55 million, and its less populous neighbors face challenges both similar and diverging in their health systems. The region grapples with extraordinarily high rates of HIV, often exacerbated by co-infections of tuberculosis or malaria. Neglected tropical disease response is jeopardized by lagging funding. Water and sanitation shortcomings continue to play an important role, especially in light of the drought and effects of El Niño expected to worsen in coming months.
In this context, IRP fellows to southern Africa will explore emerging research to develop new health and development tools, and the challenges of bringing them to scale. How does promising research in these fields lead to on-the-ground delivery that improves people’s lives? This is a particularly relevant question in South Africa, home to numerous globally recognized research institutions.
In July 2016 in Durban, a two-day TB conference followed by the world HIV/AIDS conference will put the spotlight once again on the continued challenges presented by efforts to stem these diseases.
Fellows on the two-week reporting trip will look at these issues and many more in South Africa, with a few days spent in one of its neighboring countries. We will meet with key government leaders, representatives of nongovernmental organizations, members of the scientific and business communities, religious and media leaders, and others.
How to Apply
For this trip, we are accepting applications only from citizens or residents of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The southern Africa trip is open to innovative journalists, bloggers, influential social media practitioners, and other media professionals. This trip is not open to students.
All candidates must complete an application form and provide a detailed essay of at least 800 words describing the types of stories they might pursue and which outlets will publish their work.
This is a working trip, and participants will produce stories such as articles, slideshows, video, audio, blog posts, infographics, social media posts and more.
More Details
The IRP will purchase the fellows’ round-trip air tickets to southern Africa and will pay for visas, hotel costs, local transportation and several meals. Fellows who wish to extend their stay after the fellowship will have the option to arrange that at their own expense.
All fellows on the trip are required to participate in the sessions arranged for the group program. Much of the value of a group reporting trip comes from both meetings that IRP arranges and the interactions the fellows have with each other. Some independent reporting time will be included in the schedule. However, if you prefer to have more flexibility in your reporting schedule, we strongly encourage you to extend your trip or to apply for our individual reporting fellowships.
All of the stories will be republished on the IRP site and co-owned by the fellow (or his/her distribution partners, depending on arrangements) and the IRP. In addition, the work produced as a result of the trip may be posted, with permission of the fellow, on the social media channels of the IRP funders. This trip is supported by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Read our frequently asked questions and apply for the trip by midnight (EST) on February 16, 2016!
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