Meet this year’s recipients of our broadcast exchange bursaries

We are pleased to announce the names and projects of the ten professionals who have received this year’s Public Media Alliance travel bursaries

Our programme enables staff from broadcast networks and partner NGOs to go on exchange, an event or training in another country for up to two weeks – sharing knowledge between national broadcasters across the world, and bringing back experience and fresh ideas to their organisation. This year’s intake includes technical professionals, journalists exploring social issues and producers looking to increase cultural diversity in their output.

The 2015 bursars are:

Odette Campbell from GBN Grenada to attend the Radiodays Europe conference in Italy

Odette is a content developer with Grenada’s national radio and TV network. She has been helping to reposition the network’s two radio stations after they switched from AM to FM last year. She says that the workshop subjects at Radiodays speak exactly to some of the issues her network currently faces, and she can learn what’s needed to help take the stations forward.

 

 

Mathew Ezekiel from TBC Tanzania to visit the Rwanda Broadcasting Authority

A documentary film producer with Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation, Mathew would like to exchange skills with counterparts in Kigali on the production of human interest stories. He will also focus on how women are portrayed in Rwandan media. Mathew would also like to observe how traditional and social media interact in regard to audiences. He also hopes to produce a documentary, ‘Kigali City Cleanliness’ on an area of the capital where many women work.

 

Sohaila Kapur Charnalia from Lok Sabha India to visit ABC and SBS Australia

Sohaila is a senior anchor for India’s parliamentary channel, Lok Sabha. She presents a weekly programme called The State of Culture. She is keen to understand Australia’s cultural diversity, particularly indigenous cultures, and how the country’s public broadcasters address and reflect this. Sohaila says she will draw parallels with India’s context, and feels she can learn from SBS’s multilingual broadcast schedule.

 

Sanjita Kauchar from Radio Bikrampur Bangladesh to attend the PMA gender workshop in India

Sanjita is a producer for a young community radio station. She used the bursary to participate in our gender workshop in Delhi earlier this month. She aimed to gain expertise and understanding of broadcasters from different countries, as well as representing Bangladesh’s community radio sector. She plans to use what she learned from the training to develop more programmes around gender and women’s issues, particularly for rural Bangladesh.

 

Nadine Mcleod from TV Jamaica to visit NBC in St Vincent and the Grenadines

Nadine is a reporter and producer for TVJ, aiming to produce a three-part TV and radio feature about violence against women and girls in St Vincent and the Grenadines. It will be a chance to examine a Caribbean issue in depth. She hopes that it will raise awareness among Jamaicans who may think they are alone in tackling the problem, and it will create content for both her network and NBC.

 

Keerthi Bandara Mahagedara from Sarvodaya Sri Lanka to attend the PMA gender workshop in India

Keerthi is a district coordinator for Sarvodaya, a community development NGO. He used the bursary to attend our gender workshop in Delhi earlier this month. He says the exposure he gained to women’s portrayal and engagement in the media means his NGO can utilise the knowledge to enhance female participation in decision-making and harness media more effectively to highlight gender issues.

 

Bouchra Ouatik from CBC Radio-Canada to visit CRTV Cameroon

Bouchra is a reporter for Radio-Canada and her goal is to be an international correspondent for the network. Her parents are Moroccan, so she is keen to engage with her African heritage and the continent’s news agendas. Bouchra thinks she will learn a lot in Cameroon from reporters covering very different issues. As a reporter on radio, TV and web in Canada, she hopes to be able to share her multiplatform skills and experience with CRTV.

 

Tshilidzi Davhana from SABC South Africa to visit CBC Radio-Canada

A commissioning editor and former teacher, Tshilidzi has a specific interest in educational content, and she would like to see how another broadcaster makes educational content competitive and educational at the same time. Broadcasting in a country with 11 official languages, she is also keen to compare the approach of Canada’s public broadcaster, which broadcasts in two national and eight Aboriginal languages.

 

Kelly-Anne Turnbull from GBC Gibraltar to visit BBC Scotland

A broadcast journalist and TV presenter, Kelly-Anne says that all her media training at GBC has been on the job. She would therefore like to gain further skills in radio, TV and online content at BBC Scotland too. It will enable her to bring back experience from a larger broadcaster to GBC, which she describes as extremely hardworking, and one which the island’s population of 30,000 feels very close to.

 

Hassan Ahmed Usman from FRCN Nigeria to visit KBC Kenya

Hassan is an engineer for FRCN, which broadcasts from 32 of Nigeria’s 36 states. He would like to learn about the latest broadcast technology at Kenya’s national broadcaster, to help map out a strategic plan for digital radio broadcasting in his country. As Nigeria is an ethnically diverse, multi-religious country, Hassan says he would like to design a multi-language channel. He aims to organise a workshop on his return to share the knowledge gained with his colleagues.

 

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Bursars will be travelling until June this year. The Public Media Alliance is grateful to the Elizabeth R Broadcasting Fund and the Grace Wyndham Goldie Trust for their continued support for these bursaries.