Application deadline: December 10, 2012
Children of a migrant community working at a brick kiln near Bishanpur in Darbhanga district are vaccinated by a polio vaccination team.
In 2013 the IRP will offer three separate reporting trips of 8 to 10 days each for US and international new media journalists to report on important global health and development issues in one country.
The first of those trips will be to India on February 17-27, 2013.
Priority for these trips will be given to journalists and influential media practitioners from the following countries: United States, Brazil, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Spain, Tanzania and United Kingdom.
New media journalists include bloggers, social media editors and experts with large followings, photographers and videographers, new media commentators and contributors, and media professionals.
The trip will focus on issues of child survival in India. Among the topics we will examine are the development of vaccines, child malnutrition, tuberculosis, polio, HIV/AIDS, maternal health, access to clean water and hygiene, privatization of health care and its affect on child survival, and the impact of agricultural and rural development on child survival. The program will include meetings and site visits in Delhi and Mumbai, with a visit to a rural area.
Radha Das, a social health activist, applies the Hepatitis B vaccine to a child at a rural health center in India.
Participants would be asked to be as active as possible in blogging or reporting in any format about the trip. We would encourage blogging during the trip, and afterwards. Multimedia content is encouraged. All candidates must fill out an application form on which they should describe the stories they would pursue during the India trip.
All of the content produced by the participants on the IRP trip to India would be posted on the IRP site and co-owned by you (or your distribution partners, depending on agreements) and the IRP. Participants would be encouraged to find other media outlets/distribution, including online publications, blogs and web sites for their work. In addition, the works produced as a result of the trip would be made available for posting on the social media channels of the IRP’s funders. The IRP new media journalists trips are supported by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The IRP would purchase participants’ roundtrip air tickets to India, pay for hotel costs, meals and local transportation. Participants would have to arrange their own visas to India, but the IRP will reimburse them for the visa costs. Participants who wish to stay on in India after the end of the program on February 27 would have to arrange that at their own expense.