Deadline: May 18, 2018 at 7pm IST.
The Earth Journalism Network (EJN) Bay of Bengal Organizational Grants are available to support the creation, growth, and capacity building of media and other development or educational organizations in the region, that aim to improve the quantity and quality of information about climate change, and access to this information by groups such as women and youth that are most vulnerable to its impacts.
The Bay of Bengal is widely recognized as one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to the impacts of climate change. This vulnerability is a function of both the wide variety of climate risks as well as the density and diversity of the roughly 400 million people who call it home.
In a warming world, communities living in the low-lying coastal plains and river deltas increasingly find their lands eroded away by a rising sea and their freshwater ruined by saltwater intrusion. Further inland, droughts, floods and deadly heat waves afflict the health of vulnerable groups in addition to the crops communities depend on for their livelihoods.
The ways in which people experience these impacts is often uneven; a person’s identity—gender, ethnicity, livelihood, class and age—affect an individual’s ability to respond to shocks as well as the community’s overall resilience and adaptive capacity. In the Bay of Bengal region, the people most vulnerable to the effects of climate change face a binary problem: lack of representation in the narratives of governments and major media outlets, and a lack of access to quality information about climate change and building resilience to its impacts.
Faced with these challenges, this grant presents an opportunity for media organizations, community groups and educators working in vulnerable coastal communities in four Indian states (Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal) and Bangladesh to expand on their capacity-building activities, improve their coverage of climate change impacts and resilience-building, or strengthen local and/or regional networks.
The Bay of Bengal Organizational Grants are provided as part of the EJN Bay of Bengal project, implemented by Internews with the generous funding from the Climate Justice Resilience Fund.
AIM OF THE GRANTS
The aim of the Bay of Bengal Organizational Grants is to strengthen the capacity of organizations to produce high quality, actionable news and information about climate change impacts and resilience-building for the vulnerable communities and policymakers in the region.
WHAT TYPES OF ACTIVITIES DOES THIS GRANT SUPPORT?
The EJN Bay of Bengal Organizational Grants are available to support the generation of media reports on climate change, environment and natural resource management issues; disseminate news and information to the most vulnerable communities and policymakers; and boost the voices of marginalized groups (women, youth and indigenous people) who are most at risk of climate change and environmental problems.
Through these grants, Internews intends to strengthen the capacity of organizations to report on and explain the drivers and impacts of environmental and climate change, along with the solutions that build resilience and prevent future crises.
Community radio outlets , specifically those who cover or reach vulnerable communities, are especially encouraged to apply.
Proposed activities should be designed to contribute towards at least one of the following outcomes:
- Marginalized coastal communities and/or policymakers in the region have improved and reliable access to quality socio-environmental news and information;
- Improved organizational capacity to report on socio-environment issues in an accurate and compelling way;
- Improved organizational capacity to produce greater quantity and quality of socio-environmental news and information;
- Reduced exclusion of marginalized groups in socio-environmental information;
- Peer and multi-stakeholder engagement around socio-environmental issues.
- Particular attention should be given to the adaptation needs, challenges, efforts and success stories of vulnerable and marginalized communities.
While content production is an important aspect of the proposed activities, applications should include some form of networking, knowledge sharing, and/or capacity-building component. Please note that there will be a separate story grant opportunity available later this year.
WHO ARE ELIGIBLE TO APPLY FOR THIS GRANT?
- Established media organizations, journalism networks, community groups located in the region, universities and journalism schools are welcome to apply. The organizational grants can also be used to support the establishment of environmental journalism networks in places where they don’t exist. In such cases, applicants should note their affiliations with existing media organizations, if applicable, or provide detailed plans about how this project would facilitate the creation of a new organization.
- NGOs and research institutes will also be considered, but only those with strong media and communication programs who are dedicated to supporting fair and accurate reporting. As Internews is a media development organization, we will not consider applications rooted in advocacy or political campaigning.
WHAT IS THE AMOUNT OF THE GRANTS?
The typical grant will be for up to US$15,000 and support a one-year project.
WHERE CAN THIS FUNDING BE USED?
Activities proposed should support socio-environmental reporting and climate resilience-building in the Bay of Bengal region – specifically in the coastal regions of four Indian states ((Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal), and coastal and floodplain areas of Bangladesh.
