Two Nigerian journalists, Toluwani Eniola, a correspondent with The Punch Newspaper and Chikezie Omeje, senior investigative and data reporter with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, Nigeria have been named fellows for the 2017 Early Childhood Development Reporting Fellowship.
Eniola and Omeje are among 12 fellows named for the programme by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), in partnership with the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) and Fundação Maria Cecilia Souto Vidigal.
Before joining The Punch, Eniola worked as a staff reporter at The Nation newspapers, where he covered health and development issues. He has won several journalism awards, including Journalists for Christ’s 2014 Innovative Young Journalist Prize and the 2015 Promasidor Quill Journalism Prize for best report on children.
He was recently listed among the Nigerian Writers Awards’ 100 most influential Nigerian writers under 40.
Omeje primarily covers health and education. He has more than 10 years of media experience, working in broadcast, print and online media. He was the 2013 winner of the Development Communications Network’s Journalist Development Programme Award for best report in Abuja, and the award for overall best broadcast piece.
During the year-long program, the fellows will receive virtual training, mentoring and financial support to produce regular stories on nutrition and early-childhood development, relevant to their home countries.
The program will begin with a virtual orientation (webinar) after which each fellow will be assigned a mentor who will work with them as they produce stories on early childhood development issues. ICFJ will conduct regular webinars during the year of the fellowship.
The program also includes two reporting trips. ICFJ will send all fellows to a country that is implementing a successful and innovative approach to supporting childhood development. The fellows will meet with early childhood development experts in the field and will produce stories with the help of their mentors.
ICFJ and its partners are currently working on selecting the dates and destinations for both trips. ICFJ will cover all of the fellowship expenses.
Two more groups of fellows will be recruited over the next two years for the the Fellowship open to journalists covering issues of child health and development for news outlets based in Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania
The goal of the fellowships is to improve news coverage of child health and form a global network of reporters covering this critically-important issue.
