Story Grants on the Gendered Impacts of Environmental and Climate Crises

Recognizing that women and gender and sexual minority journalists have limited access to opportunities and, at the same time, bring much-needed perspective to environmental and climate debates, EJN’s Asia-Pacific project, with support from Sida, is pleased to offer grants to selected women journalists and those who identify as gender and sexual minorities  from the Asia-Pacific region. In addition to funding, selected journalists will receive support from experienced mentors and EJN’s Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) Advisor throughout the story production process.

They aim to support the production of stories reported with a robust and intersectional Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) approach, which considers unequal power relations and inequalities experienced by individuals as a result of their social identities, including gender, location, (dis)ability, wealth, education, age, caste/ethnicity, race, sexuality.

They seek to support stories that will drive conversation among communities and policymakers at the local, national, and regional level. They are particularly interested in cross-border collaborations and stories. Proposals that focus on topics or stories that have not been widely covered are preferred. Issues that have already received a lot of media coverage or don’t provide unique angles to environmental or climate challenges are less likely to be selected.

Story Themes

• Story ideas could focus on, but are not limited to:
  • The disproportionate impact of climate and environmental threats on the livelihoods, health and well-being of women and gender and sexual minorities
  • how climate-induced disasters amplify gender inequalities and make vulnerable populations targets of gender-based violence
  • how gender-blind conservation and policy efforts (or a non-intersectional understanding of gender) further marginalizes and/or curtail the rights of women and gender and sexual minority groups
  • On-Ground instances where the knowledge and participation of women and gender and sexual minorities’ participation has led to more equitable and inclusive conservation efforts, sustainable natural resource management and governance, or climate adaptation and mitigation measures.
  • Women-led and/or gender and sexual minority-led solutions that address the intersecting crises of health, biodiversity and climate and demonstrate resilience, from the grassroots community level to international multilateral spaces.

Funding Information

• EJN’s Asia-Pacific project, with support from Sida, is pleased to offer approximately 20-25 story grants of up to $2000 each to selected women journalists.

Story Logistics

• Safety: They encourage reporters to follow public health regulations and best practices for local disease outbreaks when out in the field, so you do not endanger yourself or the people you’re interviewing. They also encourage journalists to follow best practices on physical and digital safety.
• Language of publication: Stories can be produced in any language. They encourage stories that are produced in local languages for local audiences. However, applicants who intend to write or produce stories in their local language need to also include an English translation, or a high-quality summary of the story in English. Please include the cost for translation in the budget, if necessary.
• Story budget: All applicants are required to provide a detailed budget with justification for the amount requested. They ask that the budgets be reasonable and account for costs necessary for reporting, such as travel, accommodation, translation and data visualization.
  • Generally speaking, applications with smaller budgets will be more competitive, but they will consider larger grant amounts for stories using innovative, collaborative or investigative approaches that may be more resource-intensive and time-consuming.
  • They expect that proposals will largely reflect what equipment the applicant already has access to (including cameras, drones, lighting, tripods, etc.) and will not consider budgets that heavily focus on purchasing new equipment.
  • They will consider a stipend for the reporters’ salary (not to exceed more than 30% of the total budget), particularly if the applicant is a freelancer.
• Acknowledgement of EJN support: Published stories and/or broadcasts must disclose EJN support by including this tagline: “This story was produced with support from Internews’ Earth Journalism Network.” Exceptions may be considered on a case-by-case basis.
• Republication rights: Those who are awarded grants are free to publish or broadcast their stories first in their affiliated media as long as Internews’ EJN, its partners and the grant funder are also given rights to edit, publish, broadcast and distribute them freely.

Eligibility Criteria

• They will accept applications from women journalists (and those who identify as gender and sexual minorities) residing in low- and middle-income countries in Asia Pacific.
• For the purposes of this opportunity, they welcome applications from Southeast Asia, South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific Islands. They will not accept applications from Australia, New Zealand, Central Asia or Middle East.
• They will accept applications from groups of journalists, provided a woman or SGM journalist is the 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, they will accept applications in English only. 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) and other expert media practitioners with professional reporting experience and a history of covering women’s issues and/or environmental issues. They encourage applications from freelance reporters and staff from all types of media organizations — international, national, local and community-based.
• EJN reserves the right to disqualify applicants from consideration if they have been found to have engaged in unethical or improper professional conduct, including, but not limited to, plagiarism and/or submitting AI-generated content as their own.

For more information, visit EJN.