Deadline: 9-Jan-23
Earth Journalism Network (EJN) is offering organizational grants to media organizations, including traditional news media, broadcast media, development media, new media and independent media to support capacity-building activities for media and journalists related to understanding and preventing zoonotic viral spillover.
Journalists and media organizations are well-positioned to provide this information, but the presence of mis- and disinformation, lack of publicly available data and other barriers pose challenges to producing high-quality journalistic work about zoonotic disease spillover and pandemic preparedness. More training and resources are needed to bring journalists up to speed quickly, so they can disseminate information to the communities most at risk.
To fill this gap, EJN has joined a global consortium led by Tufts University and USAID, known as STOP Spillover, which is working to understand and address the risks posed by known zoonotic viruses with the potential to spill over from animals and cause outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics in humans. As part of STOP Spillover, EJN is offering grants to organizations to support reporting and media development activities to increase public information and journalist capacity around this topic.
Objectives
- Proposed activities should contribute to the following overarching objectives:
- Strengthen collaboration between the media, scientists, health experts and local communities to gain a deeper understanding of zoonotic viral spillover;
- Generate greater awareness at the community and policy levels of zoonotic disease risk to help communities, scientists and policymakers identify, anticipate and mitigate future outbreaks;
- Bolster the capacity of journalists and media organizations to produce high-quality, factual, evidence-based and engaging public information on zoonotic viral spillover, prevention strategies and the most up-to-date science;
- Increase the quantity of high-quality content and media coverage on key public health themes to focus attention on the intersections between disease, the environment and social dimensions including food security, migration, gender and more;
- Empower women, the poor, youth, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, Indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities and other marginalized groups to address the disproportionate impacts of disease by amplifying their voices and increasing their access to high-quality, publicly available information.
Project Themes
- They are accepting applications that seek to increase media coverage or train journalists on a wide variety of topics related to high-priority zoonotic viral spillover risks and disease mitigation. They are particularly interested in projects that help journalists find and use data and the latest scientific research in their reporting; explore ways to better explain the drivers of viral spillover and their intersections with other global issues; and elevate the voices of women and other marginalized communities most at risk.
- Applications must be focused on the following zoonotic diseases. Proposals that center on diseases not listed here will not be considered.
- Ebola
- Marburg
- Animal-origin zoonotic influenza viruses
- Animal-origin coronaviruses (SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV)
- Nipah virus
- Lassa virus
- Please note proposals must take a nuanced approach to the role of gender in spillover risk and the differences in risk between men, women and other marginalized gender identities.
Funding Information
- They anticipate supporting at least 3 organizations with up to US$10,000 each in funding. Generally speaking, applications with smaller budgets will be more competitive, but we will consider larger grant amounts up to US$10,000 for projects using innovative approaches that may be more resource-intensive and time-consuming.
Eligible Activities
- Examples of possible activities include, but are not limited to:
- Field trips and/or training workshops that bring journalists together with experts
- Development of reporters’ resources and e-learning courses or tools
- Mentoring of journalists
- Special reporting projects
- Networking and partnership activities for journalists
- Development of new storytelling platforms
- Establishment of a journalists’ network.
Eligibility Criteria
- Media organizations including traditional news media, broadcast media, development media, new media and independent media are welcome to apply. Please note that they will not consider applications rooted in advocacy, activism or political campaigning.
- They are accepting applications from the following countries only: Liberia, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Vietnam. Organizations must be legally registered in one of these countries to be eligible – they will not accept applications from organizations elsewhere looking to conduct activities in one of these target countries. Organizations must also maintain a bank account with the ability to receive international transfers and the appropriate license, if necessary, to receive foreign funding (particularly in Bangladesh.)
- For the purposes of this grant opportunity, they will be accepting applications in English, Bangla, French, Vietnamese and Khmer. Unfortunately, they do not have the capacity to consider applications in other languages at this time, but project activities can be completed in any language.
- Organizations that have received support from EJN in the past are eligible, however, they will take past performance into consideration during the selection process and may favor organizations that have not yet received their support.
- EJN reserves the right to disqualify applicants from consideration if they have been found to have engaged in unethical or improper professional conduct.
For more information, visit https://earthjournalism.net/opportunities/stop-spillover-media-grants-2022
