About the fellowship
The Without Borders Media Fellowship aims to encourage both cross-border and hyper-local reporting in South Asia and leverage powerful storytelling to highlight pressing issues concerning public health and humanitarian aid. Stories from the ground will build evidence for medical and humanitarian advocacy and encourage visibility for public health issues that MSF and other similar organizations are working on.
Fellows will engage closely with mentors, who are experts in journalism and public health, as well as with staff from within the MSF movement, who will provide strategic guidance to the Fellowship programme, advise Fellows, and help identify themes and geographies with the need of greater focus.
Applicants can apply under two grant categories: Topic-based Grant(Sexual and Gender-based Violence) or General Grant(applicants can choose from the themes mentioned below).
Call for applications for the Without Borders Fellowship 2022-23 is now closed.
Last date to apply
General Grant: 15th September 2022
Topic-based Grant (Sexual and Gender-based Violence) : 25th September 2022
Fellowship duration: 3 months (October – December 2022).
The Fellowship will contribute to sustained reporting and outreach on the confluence of circumstances and conditions that impact public health in South Asia. This can include but is not limited to environment; social class; crime and violence; urban development; access to health resources, diagnosis and treatment or the lack thereof; transportation or city planning, and disparities in health.
The Without Borders Media Fellowship aims to:
- Encourage cross-border and hyper-local reporting on health and humanitarian issues in South Asia.
- Leverage powerful storytelling, both in visual and non-visual formats, to build public awareness.
- Support regional and local media journalists with grants to encourage field visits.
- Highlight or expose critical public health or public health policy issues
The grant also aims to help enhance rapport with South Asian media by providing logistic and access support to passionate journalists, and creating an enabling environment for them to develop in-depth, insightful reporting on medical humanitarian and issues of public health concern for MSF.
The journey of a Media Fellow with MSF will include mentorship, subject matter sensitization, training, access to MSF projects and experts, and reporting costs for field visit. Awards are based on reasonable, detailed budgets. Most awards will range between INR 50,000- INR 2,00,000, but maybe more or less depending on circumstances.
A Fellowship award will cover a duration of three months, with special projects, depending on the application and reporting proposal, given further consideration. Fellows will be expected to publish their work within three months of the Award.
A Fellow will be encouraged to support public engagement around their work via:
- Instagram/Facebook Live
- In-person fireside chat
- Video testimonials
- Blog posts
- Social media promotions
- Mapathons in newsrooms
MSF welcomes applications from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Maldives:
- Professional reporters, photographers, radio/audio journalists, television/video journalists, working in print, television or online media (including YouTube), as well as freelancers, based in a South Asian country. We are committed to supporting journalists from diverse backgrounds and of all nationalities.
- Media professionals with demonstrated professional experience in writing on gender, public health, development, public policy and/or related issues
- Journalists working for English and regional language publications are eligible to apply
Selection Criteria: - Reporting proposals must be grounded in a key public health or humanitarian aid issue in one South Asian country
- Reporting proposals must align with MSF’s work, social mission and values
- Current relevance of the story pitch
- Applicants must have at least 3 years of professional experience
- Former Fellows are eligible to apply, although first time applicants will be prioritized
- Potential to bring new insight upon an issue, innovative storytelling
The Fellowship welcomes applications and reporting proposals on thematic areas, including but not limited to:
- Maternal Healthcare
- HIV / Advanced HIV
- Emergency Response
- Endemic Diseases
- Global Effects of COVID-19
- Sexual and Gender-based Violence
- Occupational Health
- Non-communicable Diseases
- Refugee Health
- Mental Health
- Tuberculosis
- Access to Medicines
- Climate Emergency
- Malnutrition
- Reproductive Health
- Antimicrobial Resistance
- Vaccination
- Food Insecurity
The Fellowship also welcomes applications and reporting proposals that:
- Advance public understanding and health policy or human-interest stories that focus on health inequity and challenges to access healthcare.
- Explore health disparities and their causes and bringing out local and indigenous or novel solutions
- Investigate socio-economic and cultural barriers that may restrict public health and well-being.
Fellows will work closely with the MSF South Asia Communications Team and Mentors to finalise their deliverables. The Fellow must ensure that the presentation (or representation) of any facts, anecdotes and lived experiences, both medical and non-medical, that may have an effect on patient privacy, rights and access to healthcare, are closely reviewed.
- Print/Digital News: Minimum of three articles series (800 words, feature or analysis) or one long-form story (2000-3000 words) published in a notable news platform. If the journalist is already working in a news organization, then the organization needs to be on board to publish the story.
Or - Multimedia: One news feature (5-10mins) / podcast or audio story (series or one podcast for under 15-20 mins) / photo essay or illustrations supported with text (600 words).
- Participation in a webinar/Facebook Live session (ideally in association with another Org/ media platform stories published) where their stories will be launched, and each fellow will speak about their work.
It is advised that candidates include in their application letters of commitment from news outlets (national or international) to publish or broadcast their work. MSF looks favorably on applications for reporting that will appear in multiple outlets.
PUBLICATION OF WORK
Fellows will work closely with the MSF South Asia Communications Team and Mentors to finalise their deliverables. The Fellow must ensure that the presentation (or representation) of any facts, anecdotes and lived experiences, both medical and non-medical, that may have an effect on patient privacy, rights and access to healthcare, are closely reviewed.
In addition to the Award, MSF expects news organizations to pay journalists for their work, though in exceptional cases, we may consider stipends to cover a reporter’s time. If you are applying on behalf of a newsroom, please note that we do not allow overhead or indirect expenses in our budgets. For multimedia journalists, especially producing news feature stories, MSF South Asia will also publish their work on its own website (www.msfsouthasia.org).
Mentors 2022-2023
Application guide
As selection for the Without Borders Media Fellowship is competitive, we ask applicants to provide:
- Reporting proposal: Description of the story you seek to pursue during your Fellowship. MSF expects a concrete story pitch. Pre-reporting by the applicant on the subject will be of advantage to the application. A compelling, well-researched pitch (with references to add context) with a reporting plan will help stand out among dozens of applicants
- Travel and Dissemination Plan: Applicants must share a reporting plan that lists out the preferred start and end dates of the fellowship, field travel plan, the location, resources needed, stakeholders involved, number of stories, etc., as well as a dissemination plan
- Three examples (links) of your most relevant stories (to the pitch) published in the past three years
- A letter of commitment or interest from a media organization(s) that would publish your story will be of advantage to the applicant
- Names and contacts of two professional references
- CV or Resume
Past fellows
MSF introduced a fellowship for media in India in 2016 as part of its larger vision to close engage with the media. Following its success, in 2018, MSF India extended an invitation to collaborate with MSF South Africa to make it an international media fellowship. In 2022, MSF South Asia, formerly MSF India, under its new scope and mandate, is expanding the scope of the fellowship and re-branding it as the Without Borders Media Fellowship. The Fellowship hosts a reporting grant in MSF South Asia, which is co-owned with internal and external partners, to support media professionals with grants towards in-depth and high impact reporting on health and humanitarian aid issues.
Mahima Jain is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bengaluru, India. She covers science, gender and socio-economic issues with a focus on inequity and injustice. As the Medicine Sans Frontiers Media Fellow, for Article-14 she wrote a narrative long-form piece reporting on why gender-based violence is a public health crisis. This story was a finalist for the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Awards. Mahima was also a finalist for the Thomson Foundation Young Journalist Award 2021. She won a UNFPA Laadli Media Award, and was nominated for the One World Media Awards and Mumbai Press Club Red Ink Awards. You can explore her other work here: https://mahimajain.in/. She tweets @theplainjain and is @mahima.a.jain on Instagram.
Her experience with MSF fellowship
I applied for the MSF Fellowship in 2020 when I wished to explore what are the systemic issues that come in the way of tackling gender-based violence. This curiosity stemmed from the well-known fact that gender-based violence in India is underreported. I wanted to understand the role of the healthcare system in addressing gender-based violence, and if this is a public health crisis (which the WHO says it is). MSF’s Fellowship opening seemed like a good fit for such a project. When I got the Fellowship, I was very grateful that I now had the opportunity to do a long-term project which was rooted in on-ground reporting and research. As a freelance journalist, I feel like this reporting project would not have been possible without the Fellowship. More importantly, MSF staff also extended support in other ways, by connecting me with subject matter experts and other stakeholders. The Fellowship helped me break into reporting on health, while focusing on unequal access to healthcare. This Fellowship was a stepping stone in my journey as a journalist.
Swagata Yadavar is an award-winning independent journalist based in New Delhi. She writes on public policy, healthcare and gender-related themes. Previously, she worked with ThePrint, India’s leading news website, IndiaSpend, the country’s first data journalism website and The Week, a national magazine. Follow her work on @swagata_y.
Ankur Paliwal is an independent journalist who writes about science, inequity, and his LGBTQIA+ community. He has reported from India, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Germany and the United States for various Indian and international media outlets. He currently lives in New Delhi.
His experience with MSF fellowship
MSF’s fellowship provided me with the resources I needed to gain a deeper understanding of the gaps in the diagnosis of Tuberculosis in India. With the help of this fellowship, I could spend enough time with the patients, care providers, researchers, and doctors to form an understanding about why so many patients continue to fall through the cracks in the public health system and develop drug-resistant TB.
In India’s Fight Against Tuberculosis, Diagnostics Remains Poorly Understood
Pradeep Surin has more than 15 years of experience in active journalism and has been associated with CNN-IBN, News-X and Dainik Bhaskar to name a few. During his stint in media, he got many opportunities to conduct debates and chat shows on health for All India Radio and was regularly invited as a guest speaker for NDTV, Doordarshan, Lok Sabha TV and Rajya Sabha TV. He was a facilitator for UNICEF in training journalists in Public Health reporting and was a lead mentor with the Thomson Reuters Foundation in drafting ‘Critical Appraisal Skills’ course for health journalists. He is a guest faculty member at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi and has been awarded with several fellowships across the globe, including those by the World Health Organization and Johns Hopkins University.
His experience with MSF fellowship
In my opinion, MSF Media Fellowship was one of the most wonderful experiences I have had. The process of selection was very smooth and throughout the fellowship, there was complete journalistic freedom. The team at MSF was very prompt in terms of facilitating information on specific subjects. Tuberculosis is my favourite subject in terms of research and that is why I decided to report on it for the fellowship. I don’t think except MSF there is any other organization which would help a journalist understand ground realities in India with such clarity.
Recognition
MSF Fellow Mahima Jain’s story ‘The Silent Pandemic of Violence Against India’s Women’ is a finalist at the Editorial Excellence Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Awards 2022. It is selected under the Excellence in Reporting on Women’s Issues (Regional) category. She was also selected as one of the top three finalists for the Thomson Foundation Young Journalist Award 2021. The story ‘The Silent Pandemic’ was a part of her submission.
In case of any queries, please get in touch with:
Aditya Sharma, Media Manager
Email: media.manager@new-delhi.msf.org
Ph: +91 8011014936
