Ex-Campus Reporter Writer Selected For Global Reporting Fellowship

Adesola Ikulajolu, a former campus journalist under the Campus Reporter project of the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), has been selected for the 2023 Early Childhood Reporting Fellowship program.

The fellowship, organised by the Dart Center training program of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, aims to support stories around the world to illuminate challenges affecting children’s growth and development and the well-being of their caregivers. 

The fellowship is sponsored by the Bernard van Leer Foundation (Netherlands), the Maria Cecilia Souto Vidigal Foundation (Brazil), and The Two Lilies Fund (United States).

Ikulajolu will join other fellows to undertake projects on the effects of war, disaster, inequality and poverty on young children’s growth and development.

Bruce Shapiro, the Executive Director of the Dart Centre, revealed that their stories would also address the “effects of war and displacement on refugee children from Ukraine, lack of sanitation on children in the Brazilian Amazon, water pollution on pregnant women in Kenya, pesticide use on young children in Brazil, psychological effects on children and caregivers resulting from the conflict in Kashmir, challenges facing young children with disabilities in Malawi and the effects of foster care and adoption on children in the U.S.”

Fellows will receive a $2000 stipend, coaching and mentorship by senior journalists across the globe. They would attend webinars with international science, public health, education and journalism experts. 

Ikulajolu is the second Nigerian to make the Dart Center Fellowship’s prestigious list since 2017 when Chikezie Omeje of the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) became the first Nigerian journalist ever to be selected for the fellowship.

The Nigerian freelance investigative reporter further said, “I saw the call for application for the fellowship and ignored it because it focused on children, and I have always been careful and sceptical about reporting on children. I bookmarked it, and later on, a senior colleague sent me the same link again.

“I decided to read about the fellowship. I read almost every resource related to the fellowship. I read the projects and profiles of all the previous winners. Having come across the first Nigerian journalist ever to be selected for the fellowship, I decided to apply,” he added.

Ikulajolu, a graduate of the Mass Communication department at the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko and an ICIR fellow for the Open Contract Reporting Fellowship, advised young journalists seeking such opportunities always to do their research and focus on delivering quality projects rather than being carried away by the funds.

Ikulajolu explained that the fellowship is a game changer for his career.

“To every young journalist seeking such opportunity, put in the work; read other people’s work and carve out pitches worth funding. Do background work before you apply, don’t be carried away by the budget but by the quality of the projects you want to deliver.”