Group offers grants to citizen journalists

A group which advocates population and development announced on Wednesday that it is offering cash grants to citizen journalists who wish to tackle population issues in their work. Mulat Pinoy, together with Probe Media Foundation Inc. and the Philippine Center for Population and Development, on Wednesday invited Filipino citizen journalists to pitch ideas in the form of blog features, podcasts and other “new forms of reportage" for a fellowship grant worth P25,000. The group said that “creative treatments" are now needed to tackle population, health care, education and gender issues, especially with digital technology becoming more accessible in the country. “Social media and accessible digital technology have brought about the rise of citizen journalism in the Philippines. In the past year, the local cyber-communities were all abuzz with disaster response, advocacy awareness, and political debate," Mulat Pinoy said in a release on Wednesday. Deadline of submission of fellowship proposals will be on September 6, the group said.—ACC/JV, GMANews.TV