With an aim to create awareness about water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) issues in the country and encourage in-depth reportage, WaterAid India launched its first media fellowship programme ‘WASH Matters 2018’. It is also the first ever focussed media fellowship on WASH in India.
With 600 million people facing high to extreme water stress, 2,00,000 people dying every year due to inadequate access to safe water and 70 per cent water deemed as contaminated, India is suffering from ‘the worst ever water crises’ in its history, as per the Composite Water Management Index Report 2018 by the NitiAayog.
Selected media fellows will be encouraged to explore and pursue in-depth stories on various aspects of the theme, largely – water access, water quality and water conservation.
WaterAid India Media and Communications Manager Nandita Chibber said, “The dynamic media landscape of today with diverse platforms and innovate formats would help to start sustained conversations on this critical issue, highlight crisis, question the current reality and explore, inform as well as create awareness on good practices so that everyone, everywhere values this essential resource now and plans for the future.”
The aim is also to identify those heroes who have come up with several localised and context-specific, sustainable solutions and championed their way out of the crisis.
Applications for the eight-month fellowship are currently open. The applications would be reviewed by WaterAid India and an esteemed panel of renowned editors and WASH sector experts. Six fellows from across the country across diverse media platforms would be shortlisted and announced by mid August 2018. The panel would also be mentoring the media fellows while they pursue reportage on the theme of water.