Help Choose the Winner of the First-Ever Matter International Reporting Fellowship
This fall, Matter is funding its first International Reporting Fellowship. We’re going to award one $10,000 grant to a writer or team of journalists to investigate and report a narrative feature on an issue of global importance — or local stories of global interest.
We received a lot more proposals than we ever expected: more than 200! After a week of deliberation, the editors of Matter narrowed it down to six finalists, all of which have been published inside The Matter Fellowship collection on Medium. (There were many very intriguing, well-written proposals that unfortunately didn’t make the list.) Now we need your help to decide the winning submission.
Voting starts today and ends on Friday, November 21, at 6 p.m. EST. Here’s how you vote: Read all the proposals, then scroll to the bottom of your favorite. If you don’t have a Medium account, click “share,” then click “Sign in to recommend this story.”
Once you’ve created an account, you’ll see a heart-shaped “recommend” button at the bottom of the proposal—click on that heart, and your vote is cast.
The fellowship will be awarded to the story with the most recommends. And we’ll announce the recipient on December 1.
Voting is now over. Our winner is Souvid Datta.
The six finalists are:
East Africa’s Silicon Rift
Tik Root, Wyatt Orme, Juan Herrero
In Rwanda, a new, post-genocide generation is set to take the reins of the country’s surprisingly vibrant and tech-centric future. How will they fare?
Read Now
In Flight
May Jeong & Kiana Hayeri
This is the story of Afghans leaving home in hopes of crossing over into a richer world. This is the story of a mother wanting a better future for her daughter, or a young man wanting to improve his prospects in life. This is the story of us.
Read Now
The Badings of Haiyan: How Trans Women Cope After the Earth’s Most Destructive Storm
Meredith Talusan
Talusan wants to write a story about how Haiyan, the most destructive typhoon in the history of the world, has affected the badings, who belong to one of that world’s most marginalized groups.
Read Now
The Price of a Child
Souvid Datta
Sonagachi is Asia’s second largest red-light district, a gang-run hub for child trafficking, forced prostitution and crime, hidden in plain sight within India’s North Kolkata. This report will shed light on human rights abuses, political corruption and tell the story of two underage working girls trapped in the heart of Sonagachi.
Read Now
The Word for Home
Vanessa Hua
In China, swine are so central to the culture that the character for home is signified by a pig under a roof. China is starting to import American-style factory farming practices, which will affect the health of its people—and the planet.
Read Now
Exhuming Evidence of War Crimes
Christopher Benz & Rafael Novoa
Benz and Novoa propose to corroborate reports of child soldier executions in the Central African conflict mineral trade.
