Sue Turton has been a TV reporter for 27 years, and has now diversified into documentaries and writing. She covered conflict for Al Jazeera in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Iraq and Egypt where she and her colleagues were convicted on terrorism charges. Sue began at Sky News, and after reporting for ITV and GMTV she moved to Channel 4 for 12 years, winning two RTS awards.

Victoria Bridges was founding Executive Director of GlobalGirl Media UK, a London-based charity which empowers young women in digital media and journalism skills. Formerly a freelance documentary filmmaker, she has credits from all the major UK channels. Besides her work with GlobalGirl Media UK, Victoria also works as a communications consultant and video facilitator in the non-profit sector. 

Gemma is the director of One World Media and is responsible for the growth and success of One World Media’s programmes, particularly focused on supporting new talent covering global stories. She is passionate about the power of media to open minds and create space for conversation and change. Before joining One World Media, Gemma was working in the US documentary film industry. Most recently as Director of Programs for the Social Impact Media Awards (SIMA), and prior to that as COO of San Francisco Green Film Festival.

Gethin Chamberlain is a freelance photojournalist specialising in human rights investigations. He covered South Asia for The Observer from 2008 to 2014 and was previously a foreign correspondent for The Sunday Telegraph and The Scotsman’s chief reporter. Now based in Scotland, he works as a freelance reporter and photographer for a range of international publications. His Brides of the Sun collaboration, revealing the impact of climate change on rates of child marriage, was published in the UK, Europe, Australia and the US. 

Rosamund is a multimedia journalist for Carbon Brief, a UK-based website covering the latest developments in climate change. Her job includes making maps, data visualisations, animations, interactives and infographics. Her work has been picked up by a number of other publications, including the Guardian, the Independent, Vox, the Sydney Morning Herald and Scientific American. Prior to joining Carbon Brief, Rosamund completed an MSc in Science Communication at Imperial College London, and has worked for the Science Museum and the Wellcome Trust.

Tom leads all specialist science and environment coverage for ITV News, providing original journalism and detailed analysis of complex scientific thinking and environmental issues. He was previously Science Editor at Channel 4 News and nominated by the prestigious Royal Television Society Journalism Awards for his investigative work on Tamiflu

Fiona Harvey is an award-winning environment journalist for the Guardian. Prior to this, she worked for the Financial Times for more than a decade. She has reported on every major environmental issue, from as far afield as the Arctic and the Amazon, and her wide range of interviewees include Ban Ki-moon, Tony Blair, Al Gore and Jeff Immelt.

Karl Mathiesen is the editor of Climate Home News. He was previously a freelance reporter and an environment columnist for the Guardian. He comes from Tasmania, Australia, where he was a keeper at a sanctuary for injured wildlife and threatened wildlife.

Craig Hunter has been part of the BBC’s Factual Commissioning team for more than 4 years and he is currently the Lead Commissioning Editor for Natural History and Specialist Factual. Craig works across the full range of Specialist Factual subjects for all BBC Channels, including ‘Inside the Factory’, ‘Twinstitute’, ‘How to stay Young, ‘What’s the right diet for you?’. In Natural History Craig has commissioned big single subject films, for BBC ONE: Drowning in Plastics, as well as LIVE Natural History: Big Blue Live / Wild Alaska Live and formatted shows like Animals with Cameras. He is also the lead commissioner for Factual in Scotland.

Nicky Milne is Head of Documentaries at Thomson Reuters Foundation, , the philanthropic wing of Reuters global news network who specialise in under-reported stories world-wide. She films/photographs across the globe, executive produces and develops the small multi-media team, as well as commissioning and overseeing a range of freelance shoots around the world. Prior to TRF, she worked as head of film/photo at a global NGO, Christian Aid, and has many years’ experience in TV production.

Phil Harding is a journalist, broadcaster and media consultant. Previously he was an award-winning producer, editor and senior executive at the BBC where he did a number of high profile jobs. Among other jobs, he was in charge of the BBC’s Editorial Policy overseeing the Corporation’s most difficult ethical editorial dilemmas.  He was also editor of the influential Today programme and in charge of the news and English language output on the World Service.   

In recent years he has worked as a consultant and executive coach with various international media groups and senior leaders.

He has written a lot recently about truth, trust and fake news. He has just written a book chapter about the regulation of social media companies and is chairing a Media Society event on this subject later this week.  

He also facilitates and chairs conferences and events. He is a regular chair and interviewer at the Edinburgh International  Book festival. 

Alex Kirby is a former BBC journalist. He was acting Cairo bureau chief in 1986, then environment correspondent for BBC Radio and TV News, and latterly for the BBC News website, from 1987 to 2005. In 2013, with three former colleagues, he launched the Climate News Network. He was named environment journalist of the year at the UK regional press awards in 2017.

Sam is the Head of Strategy and one of the founding team of WaterBear: the first interactive streaming platform dedicated to the future of our planet. Sam leads the commercial strategy and business development of the network and production studio, and in just the last year has spearheaded partnerships with the New York Times, UN Foundation, Natura &Co, Nikon Europe, MAVA Foundation, Jack Wolfskin and more. Sam is also the host of WaterBear’s talk show: “The Bear Hug” and oversees the nonprofit arm of the group: the Resilient Foundation. Prior to WaterBear, Sam led the The European Nature Trust (TENT), produced at Nice and Serious and trained with the BBC Natural History Unit. He is also the Founder of social enterprise DrawFor, and a Trustee of the Barnes Film Festival and the Hartswood Trust.

Samir Shah is the Chief Executive and Creative Director of Juniper, an independent television and radio production company.

Samir was awarded a CBE in the 2019 Birthday Honours list for services to Television and Heritage. He  has worked in broadcasting for over forty years.  Since 1998, Samir has been CEO and owner of Juniper which specialises in television and radio factual programmes from current affairs to dramatised documentaries for a range of broadcasters including the BBC, C4 and Nat Geo.  Before Juniper, Samir was head of current affairs television at the BBC and, later, responsible for the BBC’s political journalism across radio and television. Samir’s career started at the London Weekend Television in 1979.

In June 2014 Samir was made Chair of The Geffrye,  Museum of the Home, a position he currently holds.  From 2005 to 2014, he was a Trustee, then Deputy Chair, of the V&A. Samir was a Non-Executive Director on the BBC Board between 2007 and 2010. He is a former Chair of the Runnymede Trust (1999 to 2009) and is a Trustee of Reprieve.  He was former Chair of Screen West Midlands (2008-201). From 2004-2007, Samir was a Trustee of the Medical Foundation for the Victims of Torture.

Samir was awarded an OBE in 2000 New Year’s Honours list, elected a Fellow of the Royal Television Society in 2002 and, in 2019,  was appointed  Visiting Professor of Creative Media, Oxford University  (Faculty of English).  In August 2006 Samir was appointed a Special Professor in Post Conflict Studies in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Nottingham.

Samir was born In India and came to England in 1960. He was educated at Latymer Upper School in London, read Geography and Maths at the University of Hull and has a DPhil from St Catherine’s College, Oxford.

Cora Bauer is Media and PR Manager at Amnesty International UK, overseeing media outputs for Amnesty’s global priority campaigns and UK immigration and migrant rights policy. She also leads on UK media outputs relating to Europe, South America, Central America, the Caribbean and Oceania. Most recently she has led on the organisation’s coronavirus reporting. Cora has worked in the not-for-profit sector for more than a decade from domestic health charities to international development and human rights organisations.

Collins Boakye-Agyemang provides expert advice to Senior Management, Heads of WHO Country Offices and Communication and Health Information Officers across the African Region. He contributes to the overall strategic direction and visibility of the WHO African Region. Collins has worked in communications in Africa and the UK for over twenty years.

Marie is head of the BBC’s global anti-misinformation project ‘Beyond Fake News’.   This came into operation in 2018 when the World Service started to see that the scourge of “fake news” was becoming a threat to health, wellbeing and democracy in regions across the world and needed to be challenged head on. In the past two years there have been conferences and events across India, Nigeria, Kenya, Serbia, Brazil as well as the UK. The BBC now has a dedicated anti-disinformation unit and fact checkers filing for BBC Reality Check across the globe.

Marie is a graduate of LSE.  She joined the BBC language services in 1986 and has worked as a journalist, both in domestic news and global output, producing specialist environmental programmes, business output, consumer affairs, investigations as well as live news and current affairs stories.

David joined Africa Check as Nigeria editor in November 2016. He has more than a decade of experience across different media platforms. He was one of the pioneer News Editors/Producers at 99.3 Nigeria Info, 96.9 Cool FM and 95.1 Wazobia FM in Lagos. Earlier in his career, he was metro editor at NEXT Newspaper published by African-born Pulitzer Prize winner, Dele Olojede. David has a masters degree in media and communications from the Pan Atlantic University, Lagos.

H R Venkatesh is the founder of Media Buddhi, a media literacy initiative he runs at BOOM, a fact-checking organization in India. He has focused on fighting misinformation since 2016 with his own startup, and a stint with the International Center for Journalists as a fellow. In 2018 and 2019, he was a John S. Knight journalism fellow at Stanford University. Venkatesh is a former founding editor at The Quint and Senior Anchor at CNN-IBN, a role he held for 9 years. He is from Bangalore, India and lives in New Delhi.

Laura heads First Draft’s training and education across newsrooms and journalism schools. Her work as a multimedia journalist started back in her home, Mexico, as a photographer for a newspaper. She also worked for newspapers and film production companies in the US before coming to the UK in September 2011. Laura has worked in different newsrooms across the UK: ITV Meridian, BBC South East, BBC Radio Kent, NBC News, R4’s The World Tonight and Channel 5 News. Previously she worked as a Lecturer in Television and Multimedia Journalism at the University of Kent, and produced a weekly politics show for KMTV. She is passionate about access into journalism and diversifying the media and co-founded PressPad and the UK chapter of AMMPE World.

Courtney C. Radsch, PhD, is advocacy director at the Committee to Protect Journalists. She serves as chief spokesperson on global press freedom issues for the organization and oversees CPJ’s engagement with the United Nations, the Internet Governance Forum, and other multilateral institutions as well as CPJ’s campaigns on behalf of journalists killed and imprisoned for their work. As a veteran journalist, researcher, and free expression advocate, she frequently writes and speaks about the intersection of media, technology, and human rights. Prior to joining CPJ, Radsch worked for UNESCO, edited the flagship publication “World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development,” and managed the Global Freedom of Expression Campaign at Freedom House. She has worked as a journalist in the United States and Middle East with Al-Arabiya, the Daily Star, and The New York Times.

Danish is a multimedia journalist with over 13 years of experience spanning some of India’s largest broadcast, digital and print newsrooms. Most recently, he was the South Asia Editor at VICE World News. Danish has travelled across the length and breadth of India to produce ground-breaking stories on identity politics, social justice, human rights, trafficking and slavery. He has reported form conflict zones including the Maoist infested pockets in central India and the No Man’s Land along the India-Bangladesh border.

Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC is a leading human rights lawyer with Doughty Street Chambers. Caoilfhionn has particular expertise in freedom of expression and open justice. She regularly advises and acts for newspapers and broadcasters in the UK concerning journalistic access to the courts and public interest reporting. She worked with the Media Lawyers’ Association and the Chief Coroner in the development of new guidelines on open justice in the coroners’ courts. 

She also regularly acts for journalists worldwide who are imprisoned, prosecuted, sued or subjected to travel bans due to their journalism; her current and recent case load includes work for journalists, bloggers, cartoonists, peaceful protestors and human rights defenders in Egypt, Turkey and Equatorial Guinea. She leads the international legal team for the family of Daphne Caruana Galizia, the award-winning journalist assassinated in Malta in 2017, and she is leading counsel to 152 BBC Persian journalists persecuted by Iran due to their work. She is a member of the UK Advisory Board to Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and regularly works with Index on Censorship and other NGOs specialising in freedom of expression.

Leandro is one of Brazil’s leading investigative journalists. His trajectory is nationally recognized because of his courage and innovation, whether leading editorial departments like “Revista Piaui”, or in his actual function as the executive editor of The Intercept Brasil. Demori is also the author of the book that tells the story of Tommaso Buscetta, a member of Cosa Nostra, an Italian mafia. The book revealed unpublished documents and is the result of years of research. In 2019, Demori was responsible for leading the work at The Intercept Brasil and also the journalism consortium that was built to investigate the irregularities of Car Wash Operation, the most important Brazilian anti-corruption operation. This work exposed the corruption in the heart of Brazil’s judiciary, and for that reason it has exposed Demori to risks and threats from the far-right Brazilian government.

Lubna is the Jerusalem bureau chief for Middle East Eye, which she has worked for since it was established in 2014. Masarwa is responsible for coordinating journalists based on the ground in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel and Jerusalem, deciding how best to report events from the region. In 2020 Shatha Hammad, one of the team working from the West Bank, won the prestigious One World Media New Voice Award. Masarwa, who is herself Palestinian, has also covered stories herself including the recent elections in Israel and the Lions Gate uprising in East Jerusalem in 2017. Before joining MEE, Masarwa worked at the Alquds University in Jerusalem as a community organiser; also coordinated visits by British lawmakers and journalists to Israel Palestine.

Athandiwe is a multi-award-winning journalist who is passionate about data, human interest issues, governance and everything that isn’t on social media. She is an author, an avid reader and trying to find the answer to the perfect balance between investigative journalism, online audiences and the decline in newspaper sales. It’s a rough world and a rewarding profession.

Julie is an acclaimed investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker with 20 years’ experience in crafting compelling and impactful storytelling through documentary, still images and creative narrative. Her career spans current affairs documentaries, news, politics, observational documentaries and live political programming. Julie has worked, lived and travelled in over 60 countries around the world, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, to South Sudan and Afghanistan.

Julie has produced, directed and series produced on award-winning series and critically acclaimed strands including Channel 4’s Dispatches and Unreported World, and the BBC’s This World. Her work has been nominated and shortlisted for awards including the Rory Peck Award for Impact and Broadcast Award’s Best Current Affairs Documentary. Many of her films have been shown in Parliament and some have prompted policy and legal change. Passionate about developing new talent in foreign affairs, Julie also runs courses for organisations including One World Media, and teaches on Hostile Environment training courses.

Catherine is a senior reporter with the French international news channel, France24 and winner of the One World Media Refugee Reporting Award 2020. Catherine has previously worked for BBC Newsnight and ITV before she moved to Paris. She has interviewed Gaddafi, covered the revolution in Libya and reported on breaking stories such as the election of Donal Trump and the Arab Spring uprisings.

Zain is a young person from Pakistan seeking asylum. He recently completed a Degree in Philosophy and Global Studies and achieved a First Class honours. Zain works with the Red Cross’s Voices Network and  campaigns for the rights of refugees and people seeking asylum. He has first-hand experience of the injustice of the UK judicial system and the obstacles asylum seekers and refugees go through. Zain campaigns for access to higher education, the right to employment and to raise awareness of the psychosocial impact of the asylum process. 

Mishal’s BBC career began in 1998 as a producer and she became one of the main presenters on BBC World News, spending time based in Singapore and Washington as well as presenting live on location from around the world.  Mishal has presented four critically-acclaimed BBC single documentaries and series: Malala – Shot for Going to School; How Facebook Changed the World – the Arab Spring; a three-part series on the life of Mahatma Gandhi; and Britain & Europe – The Immigration Question, broadcast in the days before the EU referendum vote.

In January 2016 she was named by the Sunday Times as one of the 500 most influential people in Britain; in 2015 she was Broadcaster of the Year at the London Press Club Awards and Presenter of the Year at the Women in Film and TV Awards.

Pasca is Director of Media at the British Red Cross. She heads up a communications team which aims to bear witness to the challenges faced by people in crisis around the world, including refugee and asylum seekers. Pasca has 14 years’ experience developing communications campaigns for charities, public health initiatives and leading brands.

Harriet Grant is a writer and reporter specialising in human rights stories. She has been writing regularly for the Guardian about migration, slavery and social affairs for nearly ten years and before that worked as a broadcast journalist and producer at the BBC. Harriet has reported from Calais, Italy and Glasgow on the human face of the global refugee crisis and has a particular interest in EU asylum policy.

Irving is a member of CONNECTAS’ Editorial Board and an academic. He has worked for media and investigative organisations like AristeguiNoticias.com and Forensic Architecture. He holds a PhD in Politics from Goldsmiths University and is a regular trainer and course developer for the Centre of Investigative Journalism in the UK.

Tim is head of International News at Sky. He has overseen coverage of the US elections; the war in Tigray and shocking evidence there of sexual abuse; the mass Covid outbreak in India; and the recent events in Afghanistan. Prior to this, he was Director of Communications at the Department for International Development, and Deputy Editor and Director of Newsgathering at ITV News, directing award-winning coverage on a range of international stories including the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010. He also covered the conflicts in Kosovo and Iraq.

A multimedia journalist by training, Heba spent one decade reporting from conflict zones in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia before moving into management. Her work for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Christian Science Monitor, Bloomberg News and The New Humanitarian, among others, took her to places like Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Chad and Libya; and she received a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting for her work in northern Sudan.

Heba has worked with The New Humanitarian in different capacities since 2007, including as field correspondent and Middle East Editor, and played a key role in planning and executing IRIN’s spin-off from the United Nations to become an independent media organisation. Her recent TEDx Talk – “Stop Eating Junk News” – drives home the importance of responsible journalism from crisis zones. She is a regular commentator on humanitarian policy in her published work, in governmental briefings and at conferences around the world. She is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the Humanitarian System and, in 2018, was named one of 100 Young Global Leaders under 40. She was also named one of the 100 Most Influential Africans of 2018 by New African magazine. Heba speaks English, French, Arabic and Spanish.

Anna is digital editor at BBC World Service where she leads on podcast, video and social media strategy. She is developing the BBC’s presence in digital audio markets around the world and has pioneered digital communities around podcasts, including hit shows Death in Ice Valley, 13 Minutes to the Moon and North Korean hacking thriller, The Lazarus Heist. She is the “digital doctor” on the World Service listener feedback show, Over to You.

Anna previously ran the digital news team at Radio 1, where she created a social video strategy for youth audiences. Before that, she was head of online at Channel 4 News where she won a series of digital innovation awards. 

Alison is editor of People Fixing the World, which specialises in solutions journalism. The strand features innovative solutions that are solving problems around the globe. She leads a team making digital video, radio and podcasts covering a huge range of subjects: a man who regrew a patch of rainforest, a scheme to find careers for ex-criminals, a helpline for men who commit domestic abuse, specialised training to stop police misconduct and a spacesuit that’s been adapted to save women’s lives in childbirth.

She’s about to join the popular BBC Newscast podcast. In the past, she’s worked on the BBC News website on video and text features, and she’s also presented and edited news and business programmes for the BBC World Service.

Vivienne is the director of the Refugee Journalism Project an initiative that she established in 2016 to support displaced and exiled media workers to re-connected with their careers in the UK. Through workshops, mentoring and collaborative work, the project focuses on helping the group to become better networked, updating their skills and finding freelance and job opportunities.

Vivienne is also a Reader and Senior Lecturer in Social Justice Journalism and Knowledge Exchange at London College of Communication, part of the University of Arts London. Prior to joining academia, Vivienne worked as a producer with the BBC and as a print journalist. Her journalistic work has focused on issues such as deaths in custody, inequalities in the education system and miscarriages of justice.  

Harriet is responsible for creating and commissioning news content for young global audiences. She edits two current affairs programmes for teenagers in Africa and a digital news service for young people globally. Her team of reporters put the experiences of young people at the heart of their journalism and experiment with innovative story-telling techniques to engage young audiences.

Prior to joining the World Service, Harriet worked for the BBC News Channel and 5 Live Radio.

David is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye. He is a commentator and speaker on the region and analyst on Saudi Arabia. He was The Guardian’s foreign leader writer and was a correspondent in Russia, Europe, and Belfast. He joined the Guardian from The Scotsman, where he was an education correspondent.

Dr Fahmy is Associate Professor of Political Science at Long Island University. She is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Policy in Washington DC, and a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights and UNESCO Chair at Rutgers University for 2018.

Dr Fahmy has published several articles in academic journals focusing on democratization and most recently on the effects of Islamophobia on US foreign policy. She has given several briefings on the future of democracy in the Middle East. She has been interviewed by and written editorials in various media outlets including ABC, CBS, CBC, CNBC, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, the Huffington Post, the Immanent Frame, the Washington Post, and appears often on Al Jazeera. She has presented her research in various venues including Columbia, Georgetown, Harvard, Princeton, UCLA, The Middle East Institute, The Asia Society, The World Bank, The Wilson Center and The Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy.

Dr Fahmy has won several academic awards and fellowships for her research. In 2014, Dr. Fahmy was one of the recipients of the prestigious Kleigman Prize in Political Science, was the 2016 recipient of the Newton Prize for Excellence in Teaching, and in 2017 was named NPR’s “Source of the Week”.

Bex Gilbert is Head of News at the British Red Cross, managing the charity’s talented and busy media team. A former journalist with more than a decade’s experience across news, features and documentaries for newspapers and TV, she’s been a member of the Red Cross media team for the past 13 years. Over that time she’s worked on everything from the Haiti earthquake to the Grenfell Tower Fire and across all areas of the Red Cross’s work helping people in crisis in the UK and overseas.

Human interest storytelling has always been at the heart of her work and over the years she’s learned a lot about the importance of creating safe and empowering ways for people to tell their own stories in their own way and in their own words. As someone who’s been on both sides of the fence, as a journalist working to tight deadlines, and a press officer negotiating access to storytellers, she understands the pressures of both. Bex hopes this event will build understanding and share best practices on how to work with people who have experienced trauma, so their complex, emotive and compelling stories can move audiences to a greater level of understanding and prompt positive change.

Dania Akkad is a senior investigations editor at Middle East Eye, focused on human rights, courts, energy and technology. She started her journalism career in daily newspapers in California, covering courts and crime and then agriculture, and worked in Syria as a freelance reporter before the war. She studied Middle East politics at SOAS.

Osama Gaweesh is Editor In Chief, Egypt Watch. Egypt Watch is an independent advocacy and research platform.

In August 2014, Maha Hussaini was appointed as the Gaza-based media officer for the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (Euro-Med Monitor), based in Geneva. Two years later, she was appointed regional office director, a position she held until December 2018. Aside from being a contributor for Middle East Eye, Maha works as an executive director for the London-based think-tank ImpACT International for Human Rights Policies. She continues to work with Euro-Med Monitor, serving as a board trustee and member of the board of directors, as well as a supervisor for HuMedia, its media platform.

Wale Lawal is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Republic, a digital subscription publication for the Africa-curious. He is an experienced media professional and an ex-KPMG management consultant. Wale was recently named to the Reuters Next list of global thought leaders, the 2021 Forbes Africa 30 under 30 list, and appeared in 2019 on the Quartz list of top 30 African innovators. He was educated at the University of Bath, the London School of Economics and the University of Oxford, where he studied technology, politics and economic development in Africa and graduated top of his class. An expert on Nigeria and African affairs, Wale’s work has featured in Quartz, the Financial Times, the New York Times, Reuters, New York Magazine and at the Venice Biennale. Wale has been writing the Yoruba Futures Exhibit at the forthcoming Randle Museum in Lagos.

Moky Makura was born in Nigeria, educated in England and has lived in London, Johannesburg and Lagos. She is the Executive Director of Africa No Filter, a donor collaborative focused on shifting the African narrative. Prior to that, she was the Deputy Director for Communications Africa at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation where she was responsible for building and managing the foundation’s reputation on the continent. In 2017 she took on an interim role as the foundation’s Country Representative to South Africa responsible for government relations and internal program coordination. Before joining the Gates Foundation, Moky worked as Communications Director for the Tony Elumelu Foundation in Nigeria. Prior to that, she was a well-known TV presenter, producer, author, publisher and a successful entrepreneur in her own right.

Jo Healey was a senior broadcast news journalist with BBC TV. She introduced Trauma Reporting training to BBC News and Current Affairs and factual programming. She is the author of Trauma Reporting, A Journalist’s Guide to Covering Sensitive Stories. She trains journalists and media staff all over the world on how best to work with victims, survivors and vulnerable interviewees. Her Trauma Reporting training is survivor-focused, with lived insight from people who spoke to reporters at tough emotional times.

Amanda is a multiple award-winning documentary producer and presenter. She believes that the environmental crisis is the most newsworthy and consequential issue of our times. Inspired by stories of positive environmental action, Amanda creates films that focus on the fight to heal the planet and stories of the people engaged in it. For the past five years, she has been working between London and Qatar as the executive producer for Al Jazeera English’s flagship award-winning environmental series, Earthrise. She was instrumental in the launch of Planet SOS, the channel’s series about the climate and ecological crisis, which she presented from the studio.

As a self-shooting PD and reporter, she has climbed vertical crevasses using crampons to obtain footage from the top of a 5,400m glacier in Peru, traipsed knee-deep in rubbish in a landfill in Sao Paolo, interviewed heroin dealers in north London alongside veteran broadcaster Rageh Omaar, and reported solo from Bhutan on the plight of displaced Lhotshampa refugees. In an especially personal piece for the Al Jazeera Correspondent series, she underwent the process of mature oocyte cryopreservation – freezing her eggs – while presenting to camera. Other productions include Harem: Sultanate of Women for Channel 4, plus Stick Thin in India and Women in Black: Yemen for the BBC.

Darshna Soni is a Home Affairs Correspondent at Channel 4 News, covering issues including policing, immigration, crime and politics. In a 20 year career, she has covered some of the biggest stories of our times, including terror attacks, the war in Syria, Brexit and the migrant crisis. She has recently reported on the plight of refugees fleeing Afghanistan. Previous to this, Darshna worked for the UK’s first elected Black MP, the late Bernie Grant in Tottenham.

Nadja Drost is an award-winning journalist, based in New York, who won this year’s One World Media Refugee Reporting award, sponsored by the British Red Cross. For her winning article, ‘When Can We Really Rest’ written for the California Sunday Magazine, she accompanied migrants from around the globe as they crossed the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama, one of the most dangerous migration journeys in the world, to reach the U.S. Her article on the Darien Gap was also awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, and a television series she reported on the Darien Gap for the PBS NewsHour was honoured with an Emmy and Peabody Award.

Philippa Nuttall is Editor in Chief Environment and Sustainability at the New Statesman. She was previously Editor in Chief at Energy Monitor and FORESIGHT Climate and Energy. She has covered environmental issues as a journalist and communications expert for nearly 20 years from London, Paris and Brussels, where she has lived for the past 12 years. She has degrees from the University of Cambridge and La Sorbonne.

Osama Gaweesh is Founder and Editor-in-Chief at Egypt Watch. He is a refugee in the UK, a well-known journalist and TV presenter in Egypt and the Middle East. He made his name as a broadcast journalist with a series of high-profile leaks of secret recordings of Sisi. He has worked as a reporter at Journalism.co.uk and hosts a daily political talk show on Al-Hiwar TV in London. He has written for the Guardian, Newsweek, Media Diversity Institute, HotTopics.htl, and Middle East Monitor.

Mohamed Hassan is an award-winning journalist, writer and broadcaster covering the MENA region for Middle East Eye. In 2017 he was awarded the Gold Trophy at the New York Radio Awards for his RNZ podcast series ‘Public Enemy’.

Maha Hussaini is an award-winning journalist and human rights activist based in Gaza. Maha started her journalism career by covering Israel’s military campaign on the Gaza Strip in July 2014. In 2020, she won the prestigious Martin Adler Prize for her work as a freelance journalist.

Shatha is a Palestinian freelance journalist. In June 2020, she won the New Voice award at the One World Media Awards for her reporting from the West Bank. Hammad was born, lives and works in the occupied West Bank, where she faces the daily dangers and obstructions of the Israeli military occupation.

Hammad has been detained at Israeli army checkpoints, covered violent military crackdowns and routinely has her movement and work impeded. Through all this, she continues to produce groundbreaking reporting that leads the world’s coverage.

Lubna is the Jerusalem bureau chief for Middle East Eye, which she has worked for since it was established in 2014. Masarwa is responsible for coordinating journalists based on the ground in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel and Jerusalem, deciding how best to report events from the region. In 2020, Shatha Hammad, one of the team working from the West Bank, won the prestigious One World Media New Voice Award.

Masarwa, who is Palestinian, has covered stories including the recent elections in Israel and the Lions Gate uprising in East Jerusalem in 2017. Before joining MEE, Masarwa worked at the Alquds University in Jerusalem as a community organiser as well as coordinated visits by British lawmakers and journalists to Israel and Palestine.

Aziza Nofal, an investigative journalist from Nablus, lives and works in Ramallah as a freelance reporter for Arab and regional websites. She graduated in 2000 from the Department of Media and Journalism at Al-Najah National University and received her master’s degree in Israeli studies in 2014 from Al-Quds University. She also works in cooperation with the Amman-based Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ). 

David Hearst is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye. He is a commentator and speaker on the region and an analyst on Saudi Arabia. He was The Guardian’s foreign leader writer and was correspondent in Russia, Europe and Belfast. He joined the Guardian from The Scotsman, where he was education correspondent.

Diana Buttu is a Palestinian-Canadian lawyer and a former spokesperson for the Palestine Liberation Organization. She is best known for her work as a legal adviser and a participant in peace negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian organisations and has since been associated with Stanford University, Harvard University and the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU).

Mustafa Barghuoti is the leader and founder of the Palestinian National Initiative and an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative council since 2006. Barghouti came second to Abbas in the Palestinian presidential elections of 2005. He is also a civil society and democracy activist and a member of the central council of the PLO.

Sami Abu Shehadeh is a member of the Joint List representing the Arab nationalist Balad. In January 2021, he was elected party chairman during primaries, succeeding Mtanes Shehadeh. Abu Shehadeh was first elected to the Knesset in October 2019 and was previously Director of the Yaffa Youth Movement. Prior to this, he was a member of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa City Council. He is a historian.

Nevine Mabro is a commissioning editor for Channel 4 having previously worked as Head of Foreign News for Channel 4 News. From Syria, Somalia to South America, Nevine’s work has been awarded a raft of coveted accolades during her tenure, including two International Emmys for news coverage, a BAFTA and countless RTS Awards. She led the programme’s Aleppo coverage with Syrian filmmaker, Wa’ad al-Kateab, which garnered international acclaim, amassing more than 400 million views online alone.

Amanda Coakley is an award winning central Europe correspondent and a Europe’s Futures Fellow at the IWM in Vienna. She has reported for The Irish Times, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, TIME, The Independent, The Telegraph, POLITICO Europe, The Financial Times, VICE, New Humanist, Al Jazeera, Euronews, The National, Deutsche Welle, BBC Radio 4, RTÉ, CNN International, LBC Radio, Times Radio, and Channel 4 News.

Before her move to Budapest, she was a roving reporter and covered the Venezuelan migration crisis, Pakistan’s general election in 2018, the war in Nagorno-Karabakh and the humanitarian crisis in Burkina Faso. As a producer, she has worked extensively with Channel 4 News in London. Her work on the coronavirus pandemic with the programme was awarded ‘Coronavirus Journalism Excellence’ by Press Gazette in July 2020.

Dickens Olewe is a Kenyan journalist working for the BBC and an alumni of the John S. Knight journalism fellow at Stanford University. His interest is in using new technology for storytelling and integrating the public in the news reporting process. He has been a speaker at several journalism conferences around the world on topics including constructive journalism, drones for news, podcasting and user-centred design thinking. He also runs The Dickens Olewe podcast, where he interviews guests on media, politics and technology in Africa.

Faisal Edroos is Senior Editor at Middle East Eye. He worked for Al Jazeera English between 2010-2019 covering Yemen, the GCC and the wider Middle East. His work focuses on war and conflict, social movements and counter-terrorism.

Sondos Shalaby is a journalist and news editor at Middle East Eye in London. Her work is focused on human rights and public policy in the Middle East and North Africa. She has a Master of Journalism and Mass Communication from the American University in Cairo and a Master of Public Policy from Oxford University.

Peter Oborne won best commentary/blogging in 2022 and 2017 and was named freelancer of the year in 2016 at the Drum Online Media Awards for articles he wrote for Middle East Eye. He was also named as British Press Awards Columnist of the Year in 2013. He resigned as chief political columnist of the Daily Telegraph in 2015. His latest book, The Assault on Truth: Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and the Emergence of a New Moral Barbarism, was published in February 2021 and was a Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller. His previous books include The Triumph of the Political Class, The Rise of Political Lying and Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran. 

Rebecca Henschke is the BBC World Service Asia production hub editor. She is an award winning journalist who has covered the diverse region of South East Asia for two decades. Previously the BBC’s Indonesia correspondent and later an editor based in Jakarta, she moved to London in 2019 to set up and lead the BBC’s World Service Asia production hub.   Working with a team of brave Burmese journalists she has produced a series of investigations and documentaries revealing to the world what’s happening in Myanmar following the military coup in February 2021.

Mohammed Najib is a journalist, war correspondent and defence analyst based in Ramallah, Palestine. He reports and writes on the Middle East region for leading newspapers and journals like The Jerusalem Post, Yomiuri Shimbon, Le Monde, Special Operations Report, the Wall Street Journal and Jane’s Information Group.

Tim is head of international news at Sky. He has overseen coverage of the US elections, the war in Tigray and evidence there of sexual abuse, the mass Covid outbreak in India and recent events in Afghanistan. Prior to this, he was Director of Communications at the Department for International Development and Deputy Editor and Director of Newsgathering at ITV News, directing award-winning coverage on a range of international stories, including the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010. He has also covered the conflicts in Kosovo and Iraq.

Pavol Szalai is the head of the European Union/Balkans Desk at Reporters Without Borders, RSF. Prior to joining RSF in Paris, Pavol had eight years of experience as an editor and journalist. Between 2016 and 2020, he worked as an editor for energy and environment in the pan-European media network EURACTIV, contributing from its Slovak newsroom. While based in Paris, he was the energy correspondent for the magazine Europolitics (today Contexte) in 2014. In 2008–2010, he covered European affairs in Slovakia’s major daily, SME.

Samir Shah is the Chair of the Board of Trustees at One World Media and Chief Executive and Creative Director of Juniper, an independent television and radio production company which specialises in television and radio factual programmes from current affairs to dramatised documentaries for a range of broadcasters including the BBC, C4 and Nat Geo. Before Juniper, Samir was head of current affairs television at the BBC and, later, responsible for the BBC’s political journalism across radio and television. 

Samir was awarded a CBE in the 2019 Birthday Honours list for services to Television and Heritage and more recently received the Outstanding Contribution Award at the RTS Television Journalism Awards 2022.  

Jakub Górnicki started Outriders to bridge cultures and societies with  original reporting and to provide a global perspective through innovative storytelling. He also started Code for Poland and transformed it into Code for All together with Code for America. He is passionate about new media, interactive storytelling and reporting projects. 

Zofia graduated in film directing from Warsaw Film School. In 2015, she made her production debut with “A Brave Bunch: Uprising Through Children’s Eyes” by Tomasz Stankiewicz. Zofia is a Grantee of the Ministry of Culture and Heritage of Poland Culture online with her travel blog Photosontheyway.com, which started from covering lockdown in Greece and continues to tell short stories about her experiences travelling in a 28-year-old van with Tomasz Stankiewicz. She artistically collaborates with Tomasz Stankiewicz to do short projects for non profits, cultural organisations and Polish theatres. 

Tomasz Stankiewicz is a film director, cinematographer, and screenwriter whose work focuses on creative documentary films telling real stories using various forms of storytelling. Before film, Tomasz worked for many years as a web designer. Tomasz created “Maharaja’s Children. Brave bunch in India” a multimedia project that uses film, animation and internet design as an interactive document. “Maharaja’s children” premiered at Slamdance Film Festival in the US and was longlisted in the One World Media Awards 2022. 

Tomasz also directed an award- winning documentary “Brave bunch. Uprising Through Children’s Eyes”, an anti-war production full of magical realism telling the story of the Warsaw Uprising 1944. 

Sahera Dirbas is an independent filmmaker, freelance producer,and supervisor. She has produced news and documentaries for international TV channels such as the BBC and Rai. She is also a researcher of Palestinian oral history. 

Nadim Nashif is a social entrepreneur and digital rights defender as well as a senior policy analyst for Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network. He is also the founder and executive director of 7amleh – The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, a Palestinian digital rights organisation. For the past 20 years, he has worked on community development issues.

Sandrine Rigaud is an investigative journalist. As editor of Forbidden Stories since 2019, she coordinated the “Pegasus Project” published in July 2021 and the “Cartel Project,” a massive cross-border collaboration to finish the investigations of a murdered Mexican journalist that won a George Polk Award and the Maria Moors Cabot Prize.

Before joining Forbidden Stories, she directed feature length documentaries for French television. Her films have been shortlisted or awarded in multiple festivals, including DIG, Europa, Fipadoc, FIGRA, SeoulEco. She has reported from Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Lebanon, Qatar and Bangladesh.

Sameer Qumsiyeh is a Palestinian filmmaker based in Ramallah. He directed, produced, filmed and edited several award winning narrative, short and documentary films. His documentary feature “Walled Citizen” had its international premiere at the 32nd Galway Film Fleadh and was selected for the International Competition at the 40th Kendal Mountain Festival. It won the {Stories of the Invisible Youth Award} at Terra di Tutti Film Festival. His short “Quarantine, Curfew and Videotapes” was labelled “Short Film Market Picks” at Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival 2021.

Sameer is the editor of the two award winning feature films by Palestinian director Muayad Alayan: “Love, Theft and Other Entanglements” (Berlinale 2015) and “The Reports on Sarah and Saleem” (IFFR 2018).

In 2020 he started creating online videos that explore topics such as global citizenship, life in Palestine and mental health. Apart from his life in film, Sameer is a devoted backpacker who believes in the power of international travel as a way for cultural understanding and building bridges between people.

Latifeh Abdellatif is a Palestinian journalist from Jerusalem who has worked in media for more than 10 years. She has produced and presented local shows, including “As if you were in Jerusalem”, “Jerusalemite chats” and most recently, “Society and Latifa”, which boldly discussed sensitive social topics.

She has also worked as a photographer and videographer for several local and international media organisations, including Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye and Untold Palestine. Recently, she has focused her work as a producer of short films for production houses and international groups, such as the Red Cross and UNFPA.

Mohamed Hashem is a Senior Producer at Middle East Eye. Previously, he worked for Al Jazeera English and Arabic where he focused on the Middle East. Hashem is a graduate of King’s College in Halifax, Canada, from which he holds a combined Honours degree in journalism and political science.

Mohammed Alatar is one of the major documentary directors of Palestinian cinema. His training as a filmmaker took place during the 90s in the USA. He defines himself as a filmmaker and human rights activist, with deep commitment to films that matter, human rights and people’s struggle. He uses his work to promote his ideas and convictions all around the world, giving scope to the causes and the human values that he defends. In 2002, he was nominated for the Martin Luther King Jr. Humanity Award for his films.

Runako Celina is an investigative journalist at BBC Eye Investigations & the co-founder of Black Livity China, an award-winning media platform which documents the experiences of Africans and people of African descent in China and in relation to China. She holds an MA in Investigative Journalism from City University & an MA in International Politics and African Studies from Peking University.

Evelyn Wambui is a Regional Media and Communications Specialist for the Middle East, East and Southern Africa at Plan International, with 10+ years progressive experience in media and communications work having worked for both media and NGO communications. Wambui’s work has focused on stories of hunger, poverty, traditional harmful practices as child early and forced marriage, teenage pregnancies, gender based violence (GBV) and child labour in numerous countries including Kenya, South Sudan, Zambia and Mozambique. Previously she has worked as a producer and host at The Human Interest Podcast, senior features reporter at Royal Media Services, and Features Reporter at The Standard Group.

Caroline Kimeu is the Guardian’s East Africa Correspondent. She has covered stories around climate, politics, human rights and technology. She has covered women-focused stories in these areas, including women’s participation in the Kenyan elections, human rights abuses against Kenyan domestic workers in Saudi Arabia, #MeToo in Uganda and the growth of harmful health products for women online, and features centred around women at the forefront of interesting developments in their fields.

Patrick joined The New Humanitarian in May as our first Senior Editor for Inclusive Storytelling, working with us to lead the way in decolonising coverage of humanitarian crises. Patrick is known for his commentaries and cartoons published in Al Jazeera, The Star (Kenya), The Washington Post, and The Elephant. He was previously curator-in-chief of The Elephant, where he spent six years building out a newsroom, which included everything from establishing editorial policies, recruiting and mentoring journalists from around Africa, getting partnerships off the ground, and editing all types of content. As Senior Editor for Inclusive Storytelling, Patrick works to expand our networks of local contributors around the globe, while also spearheading a new programme for TNH journalism fellows. Patrick works across the newsroom – and the organisation – to explore formats that challenge some of the Western-centric narrative habits of traditional journalism and that allow us and the communities we cover to more easily co-create content.

David Njagi, is a freelance journalist, born, and practising in Kenya. He specialises in print, online and photojournalism and has a special inclination towards science reporting. Njagi has over nine years experience in the field of journalism, having graduated from Kenya Polytechnic University College with a Diploma in Journalism and Public Relations in 2003. He has also embarked on several professional development training with respected institutions such as Internews Kenya, the Sida Makerere Environmental Training Programme and the Media Council of Kenya, among others. He has published his work with both local and international media outlets. Locally, he has published with the Star and the Nation Media Group publications, among others. At the International and online level, he has published with Mongabay.com, Reuters AlertNet, allAfrica.com, Inter Press Services (IPS), Science and Development Network (SciDev.Net) Onislam and Africa Science News Service (ASNS), among others.

Dr. Unni Krishnan is Plan International’s head of disaster response and preparedness and a leading expert in the humanitarian sector. Over the past 20 years, he has worked on the front lines of various humanitarian situations, where people are faced with disasters, terror, epidemics and extreme weather events.

Leon Lidigu is a Kenyan multi-award winning global health and climate journalist at Nation Media Group. In 2021, he won the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) Global Nutrition and Food Security Reporting Contest. This year, he was named the best health reporter in Kenya at the Annual Journalism Excellence Awards 2023 by the Media Council of Kenya after which he was also named the best health journalist in the country by Kenyan doctors at the Annual Quality Kenya Healthcare Awards 2023.

Hinda Abdi Mohamoud is a Somali author, blogger, journalist, communication specialist, researcher, and advocate for Somali women’s rights. She is best known as the author of Raad-Soomaali, where she shares the Somali people’s history and culture. Through her blogging, she shares her personal experiences and perspectives on a wide range of topics. Hinda serves as the Deputy Chief Editor at Bilan Media. She has a background in data visualisation and international relations, holding a bachelor’s degree in International Relations along with practical training in journalism, communications, and research. Through her writing, activism, and role at Bilan Media, she aims to empower Somali women, share the Somali experience and promote intercultural understanding.

Anyiko Owoko is a Kenyan media and PR personality, known for her contributions in the Music and Culture space that have seen her rise to become East Africa’s leading Entertainment and Music Publicist. The PR maven is the founder of Anyiko Public Relations – leading artists & culture PR agency (based in Nairobi, Kenya) steering campaigns across Africa. Anyiko PR has catered to many major campaigns for international clients and brands like Netflix, The British Council, SoundCloud, Trucaller, BMG, Sony Music and Universal Music, among others. 

Best known for having worked as Coke Studio Africa’s Entertainment and Music Publicist from 2015 – 2019 and orchestrating Sauti Sol’s brand from an unknown quartet to Kenya’s biggest music export and Africa’s biggest music group; Anyiko continues to be an industry force and a staunch supporter of artists and the creative sector. Anyiko is also the creator of VIP ACCESS Culture & Culture podcast, dedicated to promoting African talent and creatives while also serving as a reservoir for documenting the continent’s fast-evolving music, film and cultural scene; and the role women and youth play in the creative sector.

Toni Kamau is a News Emmy, PGA and Peabody nominated writer, producer and founder of the production company “We are not the machine”, which develops and produces factual and fiction content – features, episodic series and podcasts. Recent feature projects include the Emmy nominated, multiple award winning “Softie”, directed by Sam Soko, which premiered at Sundance 2020 and “I am Samuel”, directed by Pete Murimi, which screened at BFI London Film Festival 2020 and streamed for free across Africa in 2021.

Toni is currently working on a feature on climate change, a limited true crime documentary series, as well as a number of feature projects in development. She is committed to representation of the Kenyan film industry at the global stage and does this through membership at the Academy for Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Brown Girls Doc Mafia, the Producers Guild of America, and the IADAS.

Lisya is a films and events producer, focusing on supporting journalists and media makers around the world through providing funding, training and mentoring. She is the Senior Programme Manager at One World Media, working across projects that nurture new talent through the OWM Fellowship, Global Short Docs Forum, and other training opportunities. She has worked with the Rory Peck Trust, Barbican Centre, Open City Documentary Festival and DocumentarIst Istanbul Documentary Days, among others, as a programmer and coordinator. She has experience in video production, and has a background in Film Studies and Political Science.

Ruth Krause spent more than 10 years at DW, Germany’s international broadcaster, which publishes content in 30 languages globally and reaches around 250 million users weekly. One of Ruth’s primary goals is to help constructive journalism grow – both in academia and at media outlets. As a project manager for DW Akademie’s ‘Constructive Journalism Lab’, Ruth organized a fellowship on constructive journalism for outstanding visual journalists from Africa and the Middle East. (dw.com/constructive-journalism-lab). Before this, she worked as a reporter and senior editor for several solutions-oriented formats at DW, bringing a constructive approach to topics such as the environment, business and politics. She holds a Master’s degree in Visual Anthropology from the University of Kent (UK).

An Egyptian Independent Documentary Film Producer/Director, Media trainer, and an Academic who teaches at The Faculty of Communication and Mass Media at the British University in Egypt. Chevening Alumna who holds an MA in Media Production: TV documentary production from the University of Salford, UK. Winner of BBC’s best short documentary film award at BBC Arabic Festival for a documentary film entitled ‘The town the men left’. Winner of ‘Excellence Award’ at WRPN.tv Women’s International Film Festival for a documentary film entitled ‘The Bread Winner’. Hanan also produced and directed a documentary film entitled ‘SOBEK’ for BBC Arabic. Hanan is a DW Akademie’s Constructive Journalism Ambassador, DW Akademie’s Constructive Journalism fellow, One World Media fellow, and a member in Marie Colvin Journalists’ Network. Her goal is to put theory into practice to best serve society by first: producing and directing constructive documentary films about the under-reported world to empower them and inspire the audience; and second, educating the future’s Media practitioners.

Elahe is an MA alumna in directing fiction at National Film and Television School in the UK. She was ranked 1st on the university entrance exam and did her BA in film at Tehran University of Art. Elahe’s first film was her BA graduation film, a short doc titled THE DOLL that was awarded as Best International Short at Hot Docs 2021 and nominated for prestigious awards and festivals such as International Documentary Association(IDA), Critics Choice Awards, Student Academy Awards, One World Media Award, Full Frame Documentary FF, Atlanta FF, and Athens IFVF.

Her second documentary “Can I Hug You?” was world premiered at the International Short Competition at Sheffield Doc Fest, and is awarded as a grantee of International Documentary Association’s IACI initiative. Elahe concerns about children’s and women’s rights; Issues such as child marriage, child abuse, neglect, or violence by parents, rape and social inequalities.

Hossein is an Independent Producer and Distributor who started his career in the film industry in 2020 by producing some short films. He produced the short documentary THE DOLL(2021), which was awarded as Best Intl short doc at Hot Docs 2021 and nominated/selected for more than 50 awards and festivals such as IDA, Critics Choice, and Full Frame. 

In 2023, he produced CAN I HUG YOU?(2023), a personal story about himself, premiered in Sheffield Doc/Fest, recently granted as a grantee of IDA Awards Campaign initiative and One World Media’s impact campaign. In “Can I Hug You?”, Hossein decided to make a film about a very personal story hoping to challenge many stereotypes and stigmas around sexual violence in several different perspectives.

Martina Sonksen is a Brazilian screenwriter. Lastly, she wrote and produced the award-winning feature documentary UÝRA-The Rising Forest (2022), which premiered at the 46th Frameline International Film Festival, receiving the Audience Award for Best Documentary, in addition to more than 35 festivals, 15 awards, and an impact campaign in the Amazon using the film as an educational tool for indigenous and riverside communities. She was a cohort at the artistic residency BRIClab Film+TV 2020, the Doc Society Climate Story Fund 2021, and the Climate Story Lab Amazônia 2021. She also created a two-season variety show for Canal Brasil/Globoplay.

Juliana Curi is an award-winning Brazilian-Latina film director. Influenced by the Brazilian Cinema Novo movement and rooted in her journalism background, she has a body of work dedicated to crafting films and imagery at the confluence of art and activism. She began her career in the creative department of MTV Brazil directing the TV Show “Base MTV” with socio-cultural impact content on Grassroots Movements for the Brazilian youth. Since then, she was awarded by UN Women, signed the exhibitions Pink Intervention (Spotte Art NY Gallery, Artsy), The Battle of the Body at Centro Cultural São Paulo (São Paulo Cultural Center) and founded the filmmaking inclusion project EUETU Lab, which aims to strengthen the inclusion of indigenous, black, LGBTQIA+ and peripheral youth in the filmmaking industry.

In 2022, she premiered her first feature film “UYRA – THE RISING FOREST”, internationally critically acclaimed featured in outlets such as Hollywood Reporter, Variety, and the Golden Globes Hollywood Press Association. The film went through 35 festivals, won 15 awards, including the Grand Jury Award at Outfest and the Jury Prize at the London Film Week, in addition to having made a consistent distribution impact for indigenous and riverside communities, democratising access to cinema in the Amazon.

Samir Shah is the Chair of the Board of Trustees at One World Media and Chief Executive and Creative Director of Juniper, an independent television and radio production company which specialises in television and radio factual programmes from current affairs to dramatised documentaries for a range of broadcasters including the BBC, C4 and Nat Geo. Before Juniper, Samir was head of current affairs television at the BBC and, later, responsible for the BBC’s political journalism across radio and television. 

Samir was awarded a CBE in the 2019 Birthday Honours list for services to Television and Heritage and more recently received the Outstanding Contribution Award at the RTS Television Journalism Awards 2022. 

Peter Murimi is a multiple award-winning Kenyan documentary director/producer focusing on hard-hitting social issues. His feature-length documentary I Am Samuel (2020) tells the story of a gay Kenyan man’s struggle for acceptance and has been shown at more than a dozen film festivals, including Hot Docs, BFI and Human Rights Watch. Peter has led numerous investigations for BBC Africa Eye including The Baby Stealers (2020), which exposed a child trafficking syndicate and led to multiple arrests, and Suicide Stories (2019), for which he won the Rory Peck News Features Award. He has made films in 30 African countries for major media outlets including Al Jazeera and Channel 4 News. His first major win was the CNN Africa Journalist of the Year Award for his intimate film about Female Genital Mutilation among his Kuria community, Walk to Womanhood (2004). Peter is the Development Executive Producer for BBC Africa Eye.

Michael Herrod has been Head of Foreign News at ITV News since 2014. He’s worked at ITN since 1996, working first at Five News before moving to ITV News four years later, where he worked in Brussels and Washington before returning to London. Michael has worked internationally on stories as varied as the death of the Princess of Wales and 9/11 to the Athens Olympics and the Haiti earthquake in 2010.

Ruth is a self-driven Communications expert with experience in the international and local media industry spanning over 20 years. She is a Regional (East Africa) Deployments and Newsgathering Assistant Editor at the BBC World Service where she manages the East Africa, Horn of Africa, and Great Lakes daily news and next day news desk agenda for the BBC. She has been a reporter, presenter, producer, writer, and editor, at the BBC for the last 16 years. Prior to that she worked at the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation and the Nation Media Group as an intern on the Weekly Advertiser. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and Media Studies (Development Communication) from the University of Nairobi and a Diploma in Mass Communication (Radio Production) from the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication (KIMC) both in Kenya.

Ruth is Vice President of the Kenya Editors Guild, and also serving as Chair – Programmes Committee, she’s a board member of the Foreign Press Association- Africa, a member Global Women in News (GWIN) Inspired Women Lead (IWL) and an alumni of the ALI Media Fellowship.

Lourdes Walusala is a multi-award-winning journalist with a remarkable track record in developing impactful multimedia content. She is a 2018/2019 Chevening Scholar and holds multiple prestigious fellowships, including the Constructive Journalism Fellowship, Open Internet for Democracy Fellowship and the Safe Sisters Fellowship. Lourdes is an active member of the Association of Media Women in Kenya (AMWIK), the International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT) and FEMNET.

Dorcas Odumbe is the Gender Editor at Kenya’s Nation Media Group. A creative and motivated editor, communication specialist, and graduate teacher, Dorcas has a Master’s degree in Communications, a Bachelor’s degree in Education specializing in English Language and Literature. Dorcas was previously a senior editor at Kenya’s The Standard.

Anne Soy is the BBC Senior Africa Correspondent and Deputy to the Africa Editor based in Nairobi. As the Africa Health Correspondent in 2015, she focused on Ebola outbreak coverage. Ms Soy reports across the continent for BBC global and UK domestic TV and radio programmes as well as digital platforms. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree (Honours) in Information Sciences (Media Studies option) from Moi University in Kenya, where she also pursued a Master of Public Health and Epidemiology. Ms Soy began her career at the Kenya Television Network in 2005 where she specialised in health reporting. She is the recipient of several nominations for awards for her reporting, including the Amnesty Awards 2018, the British Journalism Awards 2017, the British Journalism Awards 2017 and the Creative Diversity Network Awards 2014.

Melissa Mbugua is a multifaceted innovator and entrepreneur who carves a niche for herself. Her experience includes roles with iHub and Ushahidi, strengthening the African and Asian tech industries and supporting early stage startups. She co-founded Africa Podfest, a company that has sparked growth in African podcasting, placing it in the global spotlight.  As a consultant, she has provided research and innovation support to organizations in Kenya’s creative industries across entertainment, music, film, public libraries and fashion. She serves as an advisor to Creatives for Climate and the impact council at D&AD.

Christine Mungai is a writer, journalist, and 2018 Harvard University Nieman Fellow based in Nairobi, Kenya. She has written on a wide range of subjects and her work has been published in The Africa Report, Harvard Public Health Magazine, Adi Magazine, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Al Jazeera English, The New Internationalist, and The Elephant (Kenya). Currently, Christine is the curator for Baraza Media Lab in Nairobi, a co-creation space for public interest storytelling, and a senior producer with CNN’s gender reporting team, As Equals.

Emily Wanja uses storytelling to drive social change. She is an award-winning Impact producer of the campaign dubbed ‘We Can Fight Climate Change’ for the feature documentary ‘ Thank you for the Rain’ in conjunction with Docubox (East Africa Documentary Film Fund) and Ground Volume International. She works with Government agencies, Private stakeholders, Civil Society, and Communities, using film as a tool for advocacy and social change. 

Previously, she was the consulting in-house producer at Docubox (East Africa Documentary film fund). She has worked extensively with young farmers across Kenya through ‘Seeds of Gold’ TV show and the leading newspaper version for youth and agribusiness at Nation Africa Media Group. She has produced TV shows for numerous networks in Kenya and has worked on international fiction co-productions films. She leads the Climate Story Lab Africa edition, and is on the Story Board Collective Advisory, the Global Impact Producers Alliance Transitional Committee and a former member of Climate Justice Resilience Fund – Advisory Council. She works at Doc Society as the Director of African Programmes.

Tom Odula is a freelance investigative reporter/producer/editor who believes in impactful journalism in the face of deep- seated impunity cultivated for decades in many countries in Africa. He has 24 years working experience in East Africa and parts of West Africa with a leading international news agency, an international broadcaster and local newspapers.  His broadcast work has been transmitted by BBC although periodically he works for Channel 4, HBO, SKY and National Geographic as a producer/ fixer.  His print work has been published by hundreds of newspapers across the globe including New York Times and Washington post who are subscribers of the Associated Press news agency where he was an employee for 16 years before leaving in 2021 to pursue broadcast ambitions. He has worked for the Nation Newspaper, Standard Newspaper and Kenya Times for six years before joining the Associated Press. Two of the documentaries he has worked on have been nominated for Baftas.

Miriam Wells joined TBIJ in August 2016 as production editor, a new post. She previously worked as an editor for Vice News and as a correspondent in Latin America, where she reported on issues including extrajudicial killings and illegal abortion for outlets including the Sunday Times, New York Times and Foreign Policy. Miriam started her career at the Argus newspaper in Brighton and Hove before spending four years working for BBC radio. She has a strong interest in human rights, social justice and public interest journalism and has won or been nominated for multiple journalism awards, including an Amnesty International Media Award.

Fay helped to establish The Survivors Trust (TST) in 2003 as a UK and Ireland network of specialist voluntary sector rape and sexual abuse support services which now has 120 member agencies. Fay is a trained therapist and started working with survivors of sexual violence and abuse in 1996, when she was appointed Manager of RoSA (Rape or Sexual Abuse Support). In 2015, Fay was appointed to the Victims and Survivors Consultative Panel for the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which provided feedback and advice to the Inquiry around engagement with survivors and Inquiry research projects and continues to lobby for effective implementation of the Inquiry Final Report Recommendations. 

Fay is a qualified trainer and co-developed The Survivors Trust’s accredited Diploma for Independent Sexual Violence Advisors. As Chief Executive of The Survivors Trust, Fay attends a wide range of national groups and forums aimed at improving responses to survivors of child sexual abuse and rape, including the CPS and Home Office Operation Soteria Advisory Group, the National Police Chief Council Rape Working Group and VAWG External Stakeholders Group. She was awarded an OBE in 2015 for her work in supporting victims and survivors.

Isabel Choat is a commissioning editor on the Guardian’s Global Development desk covering a wide range of subjects, including global health, the climate crisis, conflict, gender inequality, aid, education, sexual violence and more in Africa, Asia and Latin America. She was previously a travel editor for the Guardian. 

Angela W. Githitho Muriithi is the Director, Sub-region – East and Southern Africa, for Plan International. She is accountable for the coherent and consistent implementation of Plan International’s purpose and ambition of advancing children’s
rights and gender equality across East and Southern Africa, in line with Plan’s values-based leadership and underpinned by feminist principles. She ensures that quality, aligned strategies are developed and resourced for all countries in the region and programmes delivered with the expected impact.

Passionate about social justice, inclusive development, and tackling the challenges faced by girls and women, Angela has over 15 years of experience in the development and humanitarian sector. She holds a PhD in Sociology of Education from the University of Cambridge, a Master of Philosophy in Politics, Democracy and Education from the same university, a Post Graduate Diploma in Project Planning and Management from University of Nairobi and a Bachelor of Education degree from Kenyatta University, in Kenya.

Mactilda Mbenywe is a self-driven, motivated and passionate multimedia science journalist in Kenya, with a knack for environment, climate and conservation stories. She is a journalist with the Standard Group, a mainstream media house in Kenya with a mission of uncovering cross-border critical issues on both land and marine biodiversity through data-based multimedia storytelling. Apart from her passion, Mactilda has been a key pillar in reporting health and gender issues, especially issues touching on vulnerable groups.

On the environment beat, she has reported in-depth stories on climate change and investigated impacts and sources of greenhouse gases. Her reporting on environment and climate change has helped communities living around Lake Victoria conserve marine resources, avoid environmental degradation and find sustainable ways of living. Mactilda has covered global conversations on environmental issues such as the COP26 event in Glasgow, Scotland, the UN Environment Programme Summit and the UN Environment Assembly, among others. As a science journalist, Mactilda has been at the forefront of covering the COVID-19 pandemic, linking viral disease to the environment, and attending high-level meetings organized by the World Health Organization and the African Center for Disease Control.

She has been honored by the Nile Basin Initiative for balanced reporting on cooperation in the region. She has also been recognized by the Complex Urban Systems for Sustainability and Health project for excellence in reporting environmental concerns, and she has won an Annual Journalism Excellence Award for her reporting on how climate change spurs mental crises. Mactilda is a member of the Association of Media Women in Kenya, Media for Environment, Science, Health and Agriculture, and the Kenya Environment and Science Journalists Association networks.

She holds honors in journalism studies from Maseno University and is currently a master’s student in environmental communication studies.

Basma is the communications team leader at OCHA Regional for Southern and Eastern Africa, based in Nairobi. Basma has covered the humanitarian situation and response in several crises including Sudan, Somalia and earthquake response in Syria. Basma has led several communications roles including working with OCHA’s social media team at the headquarters in The Hague.

Working with the UN since 2015, she has started her career with UNICEF in Syria where she worked for four years before joining OCHA Syria in 2019. Basma has cultivated experience, including drafting communication strategies, content collection/ creation, accompanying delegations, media and donor visits to the field, managing corporate and senior-level social media accounts, editing videos and basic graphic designs. 

Frenny Jowi is a journalist based in Nairobi who has been nominated Kenyan Reporter of The Year in the Kenya 2014 Annual Excellence in Journalism Awards. Previously, Frenny worked for the BBC World Service in London as a broadcast journalist. She’s covered the arts extensively including the 2019 Venice Biennale in Italy and is the co- founder and curator of Kenya Media Week, a programme that promotes freedom of press and dialogues on contemporary journalism and media matters. The programme has been adopted across the border as Uganda Media Week. For 3 years, she was adjunct faculty at the Aga Khan Graduate School of Media and Communications where she taught courses in mobile journalism, digital media and public relations. 

She worked for the School in Kenya, Tanzania, Zanzibar and Uganda. Frenny has had extensive work experience training journalists in collaboration with Transparency International Kenya, The Constructive Institute and Media Focus on Africa. At Media Focus on Africa, she took a lead journalism role in producing radio programs as well as curating digital content for social media. She has served as a jury member for international journalism awards with One World Media and The World Association of News Publishers. She’s also worked in data journalism with Data 4 Change to create data stories that impact social change in communities.

Moses (Ras) Mutabaruka is a Pan-African storyteller, media maker and creative consultant who was born in Rwanda but grew up in refugee camps in Congo and later in the slums of Nairobi. Ras has dedicated his work to changing the way the world sees and thinks about Africa. This has led him to create TAP Media Ltd. The parent company of TAP Magazine and TAP Films, TAP is A Pan-African media house and creative boutique that tells African stories from an African Perspective and whose mission is to Rebrand Africa; one story at a time. Over the last few years, TAP Communication and consulting boutique, led by Ras, has helped organizations and institutions such as The African Union, African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), Enda Sportswear, Uber and United Nations Agencies build tell better stories of the work they do in Africa.

Ras continues to produce and direct stories and documentaries for Deutsche Welle (DW), CNN and Al Jazeera English. One of his short films, “Colours Are Alive Here” won bronze in The Arts category at the New York Film & Television Festival Awards, 2022 and he has recently been recruited by the Thompson Foundation & Africa No Filter to contribute to a course on how Journalists can tell better African stories. In January 2023, he was invited to be a guest lecturer at Deutsche Welle Akademie where he taught a course on constructive journalism and storytelling.

Mirriam Maseke is a storyteller, and a communications consultant. She currently serves as the Digital Lead at Africa No Filter and also takes on the role of supporting the organisation’s Climate Action campaign. She wears many hats including being a podcaster, a writer, a researcher, a debate and public speaking coach and adjudicator. She recently was a non-resident podcast fellow with Ufahamu Africa and a fellow for the first cohort of the Podcasting Incubator programme by Africa Digital Media Institute. 

She served as a communications officer at the Nubian Rights Forum and volunteered with the Crisis communication chapter, in partnership with Kenya Correspondents Association and DW Akademie on the ‘Reliable Information Saves Lives’ campaign in informal settlements. As a consultant, she has provided research services, project management services for climate campaigns, and leadership programmes and as a voice over artist on the ‘Thrive by Five’ programme in partnership with SHOFCO and Minderoo Foundation.

Whitney Patterson is the Head of Audience and Product for the New Humanitarian. 

Whitney heads the TNH product team – handling audio, visual, and web content – as well as the audience engagement strategy to maximise the reach and impact of TNH’s journalism.

Tanaka Mhishi is a writer and performer who uses storytelling to confront social issues across sectors. His work with issues surrounding masculinity and trauma have been produced on screen by the BBC and on stages nationwide, including the OFFIE-nominated Boys Don’t, and he has worked with journalists, universities, charities and companies internationally. 

Tanaka is a trustee for SurvivorsUK, a charity supporting male and non-binary survivors of sexual violence in London and across the UK. His first book, Sons and Others: On Loving Male Survivors, is a new look at male survivors of sexual violence as fathers, husbands, sons and friends. It was published in late 2022 by 404Ink.

Isla Gordon-Crozier is responsible for crafting a wide range of short and long-form impact film projects for Waterbear’s content slate. Additionally, she oversees commissioning for the networks’ NGO and Brand Partnerships. Isla’s career began in commercials and branded content, but her interest lies in amplifying diverse perspectives and promoting authentic representation both in front of- and behind the camera. She finds particular excitement in the future of impact storytelling within scripted entertainment, pushing various genres like comedy, drama and sci-fi.

Owen Pinnell is an award-winning documentaries producer, specialising in films that investigate the complicity of global business in human rights abuses in the Middle East and North Africa region. His latest film UNDER POISONED SKIES takes viewers inside modern sacrifice zones in southern Iraq, where oil companies’ profits are prioritised over human health, human rights and the climate.

The documentary uncovers the deadly impact of the oil giants’ toxic air pollution on communities living near the oil fields, and reveals how oil companies including BP avoid accountability for their activities.Previously, Owen has produced films including SILICON VALLEY’S ONLINE SLAVE MARKET which uncovered thousands of women being bought and sold online via apps, including Instagram, in the Gulf and WEAPONS OF MASS SURVEILLANCE which revealed the role of British arms manufacturer BAE Systems in providing sophisticated surveillance technology – used to suppress uprisings in – to governments including Saudi Arabia.

Biswajit Das is an independent filmmaker based in Guwahati who explores different visual mediums through his work and experiments with form and narrative to tell engaging stories from his immediate surroundings. His documentary and animation films were screened in various national and international film festivals around the globe. He is the recipient of the One World Media Fellowship and Sangeet Natak Akademi research grant.

Binod Dulu Bora is a resolute defender of the wilds. One of the driving forces behind Assam’s Green Guard Nature Organization, he works in the dense tiger and elephant hill-forests of Karbi Anglong, just south of the Kaziranga National Park in Assam. A passionate problem solver, he engages daily with communities living cheek by jowl with wild elephants and leopards. His work has significantly reduced conflicts between people and wildlife. He is an inspirational mentor who recruits local college and school students to his cause and trains them to care better for our wild heritage.

Arghadeep Baruah is an actor in Mumbai, India. He is an active conservationist, popular actor, and singer in Assamese cinema. He primarily worked for the Jollywood (Assamese language) film industry. Arghadeep is known for his notable work in films like Kakababur Protyaborton, released in 2022; Guwahati Diaries, released in 2022; Ravening, released in 2019, directed by Bhaskar Hazarika; Isolated, released in 2022, directed and written by Pranab Bharali; and Aamis, released in 2019, directed and written by Bhaskar Hazarika. In addition, in Google’s Discover feature advertisement, Arghadeep played the role of “Pema.”