The worsening effects of climate change impacts the Global South significantly and the language around climate change matters. If the everyday citizens that experience climate change directly are able to tell their stories and explain their climate reality in the terms that can speak on behalf of their experience to the public, better policy making could help boost civic participation and engagement.
Leveraging civic participation to produce engaging climate change stories, Climate Tracker with the support of The Cropper Foundation will carry out a Citizen Climate Journalism Fellowship to train citizen representatives from Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago and build their capacity to communicate climate change.
These three locations are heavily impacted by extractive industrial activities and require urgent attention to protect and build community resilience in the region.
Within the media, the climate crisis has also most often been framed as an international diplomatic issue, rather than a domestic vehicle for societal change. While politics is certainly at play here, it is also due to the limited access and resources for these affected groups to put forward their voices, prioritise, and help them to publish powerful climate and environmental stories through an experienced intermediary, and push democracy to work for those affected by these powerful industry lobbies that continue these extractive behaviors.
Our new and exciting partnership will provide climate change knowledge and reporting know-how to citizens in communities within the Caribbean.
💫 The Opportunity 💫
🇸🇷 🇬🇾 🇹🇹 Our selected participants will embark on a 2-month learning and publishing journey, building their climate journalism skills and knowledge, while also constructing a network with journalists from their home country and the wider Caribbean region. Participants will gain exposure to a wide range of regional environmental experts that will provide a productive ecosystem in the community.
🤓 What will you learn?
Some of the areas this programme will cover include :
- Climate change in the Caribbean context
- Understanding the keys to effective climate journalism
- Linking community work with climate reporting
- The Caribbean energy sector and industry
- Climate activism and climate communications in action
🙋🏽 This opportunity is for you if you’re…
- Actively involved in environmental civil society work and want to learn about climate change and climate reporting and communications
- A citizen journalist aiming to learn about climate reporting
- Involved in communications and media and interested in learning about the climate crisis
- Have already published climate and environment stories
- From Suriname, Guyana, or Trinidad and Tobago
- Able to commit at least to group and individual meetings with your team and your mentor, respectively
- Able to commit to attending our training sessions
Important to note, this opportunity is open to young, passionate climate journalists from around the world. We welcome applications from all age groups and backgrounds, but especially encourage younger journalists to apply, even if you feel like they might not have as much experience as other candidates.
📝 Expectations
As a selected fellow, you will:
- Be supported to produce one story co-published on Cari-Bois and Climate Tracker. Your story can incorporate written, audio, photo, or video journalism
- You will be required to attend:
- 4 weekly group calls
- Individual sessions with your mentor
If this sounds like something you’d be excited to be a part of, don’t hesitate to apply!
Major benefits
💰 Receive stipend for your published story
📢 Exposure of your profile to our global network
👋🏽 Networking opportunities
🤓 1-1 training with technical experts and climate journalists
Now that you’re interested, here’s how to apply
Simply tell us how this fellowship could potentially benefit you and your career!
Submit this form by 3rd October, 2022
I’m extremely thrilled about this fellowship and really looking forward to the fantastic stories that will be told!
If you’ve got any questions, please feel free to reach out:
- Dizzanne Billy – Caribbean Regional Director – dizzanne@climatetracker.org
I’ll be happy to hear from you and give any guidance you may need in your application process.
And while you’re at it, be sure to join our Caribbean Climate Trackers Facebook group.
All the best!
This fellowship is supported under the Climate Action Small Grant Facility under the ‘Amplifying local voices for a just and resilient COVID-19 recovery’ project implemented by the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute and Panos Caribbean and funded by the Open Society Foundations.
Get to know Climate Tracker
Climate Tracker (CT) is a non-profit organisation that aims to support, train and encourage more and better climate journalism around the world.We believe in the power of journalism, but we know that many young journalists don’t have the training, resources, or support to tell the stories they want to tell. We know that this challenge is even greater in those countries most affected by the climate crisis. Learn more.