APPLY: 2023 AFYMP funded media fellowship

Africa Foundation for Young Media Professionals (AFYMP) has announced its second year funded media fellowships in different categories for the next generation/early career journalists. The funded media fellowships which includes in-person two days’ intensive workshops, about 6 mentorship sessions for successful applicants will run across geo-political zones in Nigeria.

According to a release by the AFYMP’s Executive Director, Yinka Olaito, “This years’ media fellowship has a uniqueness because the mentorship will spread for about six months”. Also “As usual, there are four categories: media entrepreneurship, thought leadership and niche building; Campus journalism: ethics, safety, fact checking and data driven journalism; Women in Journalism, New talents Development; and Disability and inclusion, Increasing the voices of the marginalized in the media,” Olaito maintained.

Interested participants can only apply for just one of the categories. For balance and inclusion, a sizable number of the successful fellows will be reserved for women and persons with disability. Women in Journalism, new talent development cohort is exclusively for next generation and early career media women across the nation especially those who are still pursuing their undergraduate studies. There may be opportunities for those who recently graduated in the past one year. 

After the selection, each cohort fellowship will begin with an in-person intensive 2-days workshop for each of the cohort fellows. The cost of these in-person workshops will be paid for by AFYMP. The in- workshops (for all the four programmes) will be held twice in four locations: Lagos, Ibadan, Owerri, and Port Harcourt. Full transport fare may be covered by the fellowship or be highly subsidised by AFYMP.

It will be recalled that this is the second edition of this funded fellowship organised by AFYMP. In 2022, the first edition saw the participation of about 86 fellows across the countries who were selected after a rigorous screening. AFYMP is proud to say majority of the fellows in the first edition of the project had distinguished themselves through outstanding undercover, investigative, solution journalism, gender and inclusion stories they had published, got recognised and several awards for in both local and international platforms

Eligibility criteria 

• Be a next generation/early career journalist. Be pursuing undergraduate studies or just recently graduated
• Be focused and ambitious and willing to excel in Journalism/media industry
• Being an early career, next generation, campus Journalist with track record of at least one or more published articles may be an advantage but not compulsory,
• Must be available for in-person 2 days’ workshop
• Be available for virtual mentorships
• While everyone can also apply for the disability and inclusion cohort, the selection committee will give preference for next generation/early career journalist who is a PWD or noted advocate of inclusion with previous published articles around this.
• Be willing to kick the ground running with knowledge gained through publication of two under reported stories from your community

This project is part of Collaborative Media Engagement, Development, Inclusivity and Accountability project led by Wole Soyinka centre for Investigative Journalism supported with funding from MacArthur Foundation. For in-person African invasion, this project is open to sponsorship across Africa with right support and funding from interested organisations.

Application procedure and deadline

Interested applicants can apply here. Application deadline is June 5, 2023.