The BudgIT Media fellowship program started the year 2017, where it featured journalists who were focused on writing human-angle stories that raised advocacy on topics like budget access, project tracking, use of extractive revenues, social justice, anti-corruption, open governments, and transparency. BudgIT’s platform helped to give voice to the stories and backed stories up with real time data. We are focused on telling stories that will give results to advocacy issues to make the society a better place and create a more egalitarian society that works for all.
This year, the Civic Hive Media fellowship program will be more focused on stories on Gender Inequality, Health, People with special needs, Agriculture, Education, Social Investment programs, civic issues, and the extractive industry. We are looking for stories that will advance and bring attention to transparency, accountability, and civic engagement in these thematic sectors. We do not mind the scale of the stories – local or international – and we are open to the diverse use of technology – radio, text, print, IoT, machine learning, artificial intelligence or social media – as a channel to disseminate the stories. We are more focused on the impact on the people, the sustainability of ideas to deliver value and the unrelenting spirit of the journalists.
Open Call: Application starts on March 9, 2020 (12:00pm. WAT) and will end on March 31, 2020 (5:00p.m. WAT). We project that the fellowship should be able to accommodate six creative journalists out of the pool of applicants we have.
Interviews: Due to the number of expected applications, we will conduct reviews and interviews in April. Interviews will be done by our selected team of judges which include experienced civil society leaders, Journalists, Industry thought leaders and pioneer media fellows.
Announcement: Announcement of winners will be done on April 13, 2020. Fellows will be informed earlier to ensure media materials are provided for the announcement. The Civic Hive Media Fellowship session for the 2020 cohort will be on April 27, 2020, and will end on September 31, 2020. Winners will be allowed to work freely, receive mentorship for a period and additional support till December 2020.
Benefits: We will provide a monthly stipend of N150,000 meant to cover feeding and logistics. We will also hold rounds of engagements with stakeholders on the ideas to receive feedback and potential support. Other sessions on Centring People in your stories, Storytelling for journalists, Making sense of the data, Data Visualisation Tools, Multimedia storytelling will be handled by the civic hive team.
Civic Hive does not guarantee publishing of stories in the nigerian dailies as applicants are ideally full-time writers, print or broadcast journalists, filmmakers, bloggers, or other media makers, with well-established records of publication, dissemination or broadcast in local, regional or national markets, or among targeted audiences or constituencies.
In the first cohort, we were able to provide extended support of $200,000 to all of the journalists who were on board through our organization. Journalists like Eromo Egbejule, Mercy Abang, Olu Rotimi did stories that sent shock waves across Africa through the platform offered to them by BudgIT.
About Civic Hive
Civic Hive is BudgIT’s civic innovation cultural centre whose mandate is to strengthen civic innovation in Nigeria, support existing non-profits in use of design and technology, raise new civic-tech leaders with innovative and unrelenting spirit and also provide co-working space to people and ideas that transform Nigeria. Civic Hive does not discriminate on the basis of religion, gender, age, sexual orientation or ethnic origins.
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