MESHA TV personality scoops Global Climate Change Award

MESHA Secretariat has today sent a note of congratulations to one of MESHA members, Ms Rosalia Omungo of KBC’s Chanel One for pulling off another first for the young organization following her selection to be one of the recipients of the 2009 Climate Change Media Partnership (CCMP) Journalist Fellowship Awards. “We at MESHA have noted with great pleasure, your nomination to be among only 40 such winners from all over the world from a massive 600 applicants,” read the letter in part. Ms Omungo will be participating in CCMP’s nine-month fellowship programme. This includes a two-week attendance to the 15th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark, this December 2009. There are also possibilities that Ms Omungo, through CCMP, will engage in additional high level climate change meetings. Please join the chairman in congratulating Rosalia for a job well done.


The CCMP organising team includes Panos, Internews and the International Institute for Environment and Development.
The CCMP programme creates the opportunity for journalists to report in depth on the negotiations and share their stories with millions of people in developing countries who might not yet understand how climate change will affect them.

As well as receiving training and mentoring at the summit, the journalists will take part in a media clinic, field trip and interview sessions with leading climate change experts and negotiators.

“Climate Change presents a planetary emergency requiring a rapid global response. The media are well placed to increase social awareness as a first step towards action and change. These fellowships will give journalists in vulnerable countries the vital opportunity to engage their home audiences,” says Rod Harbinson of Panos.

The CCMP fellows at the past two UN climate summits, in Indonesia and Poland, produced over one thousand climate-change stories for media worldwide. At both summits the CCMP formed the largest single media group, providing politically independent journalistic scrutiny of the negotiations.

“The fellowships will strengthen journalists’ skills and knowledge about climate change and provide access to world class experts that they will stay in contact with for years to come,” says James Fahn, Global Director of Internews' Earth Journalism Network.

Unlike in previous years, this year’s fellows will benefit from months of support both before and after the summit. The partnership will commission print or radio features and run a regional workshop at the pre-Copenhagen climate change negotiations in Bangkok beginning in late September.

“The CCMP programme will help journalists both to prepare their coverage for Copenhagen, and to report on the implementation of what governments agree there," says Mike Shanahan of the International Institute for Environment and Development.

Exactly 600 journalists applied for the CCMP’s 2009 Fellowships. Of the 2009 winners, 21 are men and 19 are women. They come from Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, China, Colombia, Ethiopia, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya, Namibia, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea,Philippines, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam and Zambia.

This year the programme funding consortium is led largely by a grant from EuropeAid. Donors that have contributed to the CCMP to date are: the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation and the Germeshausen Foundation, the World Bank Institute for Sustainable Development, the Ashden Trust, the Open Society Institute, the Commonwealth Foundation, the International Development Research Centre, Oxfam Novib, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Ford Foundation.