2018 Balibo Five-Roger East Fellowship Recipients Announced

Commencing in 2016, the Balibo Five-Roger East Fellowship is an initiative of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) and Union Aid Abroad – APHEDA. In 2018 the successful fellowship recipients are Priscilia Fonseca and Augusto Sarmento. Priscilia works at Radio-Television Timor Leste as a parliamentary reporter and television presenter and Augusto works for the Timor Post in the sports reporting section. Both young journalists applied for the scholarship in 2017 with a view to develop their investigative journalism skills and connect with the international journalism community.

Part of this year’s fellowship funding for both recipients will include travel to Australia to train alongside Australian journalists and news teams following the successful placement of Timorese journalist Raimundos Oki at the ABC in Melbourne and Fairfax in Sydney in 2017.

In January 2018, Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA Organiser for Timor Leste Samantha Bond and MEAA Freelance Photographer, Nicole Cleary met with both Priscilia and Augusto in Dili and talked about their plans to use the fellowship and what they hope to achieve with the support of APHEDA and MEAA in 2018.

APHEDA is very excited to again be involved with supporting journalists in Timor Leste this year and we look forward to some great opportunities for APHEDA activists to meet with Priscilia and Augusto when they visit Australia during the year as well as some fantastic news stories to share from our comrades in Dili.

The Balibo Five and Roger East Fellowship offers an annual scholarship to journalists from Timor Leste. The scholarship began in 2016 with funding from MEAA, the Fairfax Media More Than Words workplace giving program, and private donations. The funds assist successful candidates to undertake investigative journalism in memory of the six Australian Journalists who were murdered by Indonesian forces in Timor Leste in 1975.

Read more: www.meaa.org/mediaroom/balibo-five-roger-east-fellowships-for-2018-announced

 

Meeting this morning with Balibo 5 and Roger East fellowship recipients for 2018, Priscilla Fonseca and August Sarmento plus Mana Elisabeth. Exciting adventures ahead 🙂 #globalsolidarity #vivatimorleste

A post shared by Union Aid Abroad – APHEDA (@unionaidabroad) on Jan 15, 2018 at 2:40am PST