EJN Environmental Justice Reporting Story Grants for Asia-Pacific Youth

Deadline: October 5, 2022

Traditional media often overlook or under-report issues that are of central concern to youth and marginalized communities – such as environmental and climate injustice. Environmental injustice, or the fact that some communities bear unequal environmental burdens and are at greater risk of being harmed by resource extraction, environmental degradation, and pollution, “remains largely absent in the daily news cycle” finds Nieman Reports.  

At the same time, as independent media outlets around the world struggle to remain viable, opportunities for journalism students, and emerging and early-career journalists have grown scarce; even more so when youth journalists are from marginalized communities, such as indigenous peoples and ethnic minority groups.  

To help fill this gap, Internews’ Earth Journalism Network, EJN, is awarding story grants to selected youth journalists in the Asia-Pacific region to carry out environmental justice reporting. 

Environmental justice reporting centers on communities that bear the brunt of climate or environmental disasters and policies — and the resilience they demonstrate in the face of these systemic inequities. Please see the examples listed below. 

By supporting youth journalists, we hope to build their reporting capacity, improve youth representation in the media and raise more awareness about environmental justice and their experiences. Selected journalists will be paired with mentors who will support them to report the stories they believe need to be told, their way. If needed, mentors will also guide journalists on how to pitch stories to media outlets, how find sources, interview experts, and disseminate their work.  

These story grants are made possible with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) for the EJN Asia-Pacific project, phase two.]

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Story Themes

EJN is pleased to offer around 20 story grants of USD 1,000 each on average to youth journalists aged 30 and below from the Asia-Pacific to produce innovative and engaging stories on environmental and climate issues in the region.   

Journalists are encouraged to explore under-reported environmental injustice issues while amplifying the voices of youth and vulnerable groups. Examples of topics include (but are not limited to):  

• The disproportionate impacts of environmental degradation and climate-driven impacts, such as forced migration, on the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable groups (including the poor, youth, women, Indigenous Peoples, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, etc)   
• Efforts by youth and/or marginalized communities to defend their territories and protect their food sovereignty, land and water rights, and biodiversity from the impacts of unplanned development, over-tourism, logging, mining, fossil fuel extraction,  fishing, industrialized farming, land-grabbing, and other activities that threaten their surrounding environment. 
• Efforts by youth and marginalized communities to raise environmental awareness, adapt to and mitigate climate change, promote renewable energy, decarbonization, and a just transition to net zero. 
• Efforts by youth and marginalized communities to expose greenwashing and protect against projects promoted as solutions to combat climate change end up harming local biodiversity or displacing local communities, such as bio-energy plantations, renewable energy farms, carbon credit farms, etc.  
• Creative and innovative initiatives led by youth to tackle climate change, biodiversity loss, or other environmental issues. 

We aim to support the production of stories that raise awareness about environmental injustice and amplify the voices of those most impacted.  

We encourage stories that report on potential solutions and highlight how vulnerable communities are responding to environmental challenges. We are interested in supporting stories that are told in creative and innovative ways or using data to illustrate the issue and make it easier to understand.  

Issues that have already received a lot of media coverage or don’t provide fresh angles are less likely to be selected.   

Eligibility Criteria

Youth journalists (aged between 15 to 30) from low- and middle-income countries within the Asia-Pacific region are welcome to apply. We especially invite applications from youth who also identify as: 

• Women 
• LGBTQIA+ 
• Ethnic/Cultural/religious minorities  
• Indigenous peoples  
• Persons with physical challenges and/or cognitive impairments 

For the purposes of this grant call, we are accepting applications from South Asia (applicants from Pakistan should note that we will not be able to transfer funds into Pakistan), Southeast Asia, East Asia, and the Pacific region but not Australia, New Zealand and territories of the United States of America and other Western countries in the Pacific islands. We will prioritize applicants from lower and middle-income countries. 

Groups of journalists, including from different countries, who wish to submit a joint application are eligible. However, the application must be made in the name of one lead applicant. Lead applicants are responsible for communicating with EJN and receiving funds on the group’s behalf if awarded.   

For the purposes of this grant opportunity, we will accept applications in English. Unfortunately, we do not have the capacity to consider applications in other languages at this time. Applicants must either have a working understanding of English or have a translator available to assist with communication with Internews staff. 

Applications are open to journalists working in any medium (online, print, television, radio, multimedia). We encourage applications from journalism students, freelance reporters, and staff from all types of media organizations – international, national, local, and community-based.  

All applicants are encouraged to provide a signed letter of support from an editor, stating that the media outlet will publish the stories produced as a result of this grant by December 15, 2022. We welcome previously published writing samples but journalists who have not been published are still eligible to apply without a letter of support. EJN reserves the right to disqualify applicants from consideration if they have been found to have engaged in unethical or improper professional conduct.   

Please note: For this call, EJN invites applicants to pitch their story ideas in the form of a short video.  

Application Procedure

• Click the Apply now button at the top of the page.  
• If you have an existing account, you’ll need to log in. Since we recently updated our website, you might have to reset your password by clicking the “Forgot password?” link on the log-in page. If you don’t have an account, you must register by clicking “Log in” on the top right of the page and clicking the “Sign up” link at the bottom of the page that opens. Click here for detailed instructions on how to create an account, and here for detailed instructions on how to reset your password.  
• If you start the application and want to come back and complete it later, you can click ‘Save Draft.’ To return to the draft, you’ll need to go back to the opportunity and click ‘Apply now’ again to finalize the application. Applications should provide a detailed budget in an Excel spreadsheet with justification for the amount requested. Download the budget template now by clicking on this link.  

Application Registration Deadline: 5th October 2022

To Apply: Click here

Official Website: Click here