Application to the OWM Fellowship is free.

We suggest you apply with your strongest proposal. However if you wish to apply with multiple projects, you need to fill in a separate application for each proposal.

Your reference should be written on headed paper and can be from a tutor/lecturer, a commissioner, an employer, or an established practitioner in your medium that is familiar with your work. It should clarify in what capacity your referee knows you; confirmation that they are familiar with your work, and a comment on your application, particularly your ability to deliver the piece of media proposed.

We expect you to have researched and verified your stories before applying. We will generally not consider your proposal if you have not established contacts and contributors on the ground and obtained their agreement to take part. We do not expect you to have a trailer or existing footage, however it always helps if you have any visuals to support your application.

We aim to support journalists and media makers at the early stages of their careers. We expect a basic level of industry experience, as we do not provide any technical training, and expect you to be able to deliver the piece of media you are proposing. We prioritise emerging and early career applicants, over established filmmakers and journalists who have directed or produced numerous pieces and already have access to a network of industry professionals in their field.

Projects should focus on stories, topics or issues in, about or related to low- and middle-income countries across the global south. This includes countries across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East, Russia or the Post-Soviet States.

We support non-fiction media across all platforms: film, print, audio, photojournalism, and multimedia.

The applications are open to anyone from around the world, as long as the proposed story is about or from the global south. We have 10 spaces reserved for applicants from across Africa, and 10 spaces for applicants based anywhere else in the world.

Applicants who are from AND based in the continent of Africa, which means those who hold citizenship, and live and work primarily in Africa. If you are based in Africa but from anywhere else in the world, please select the International category.

Unfortunately, no. We support projects at pre-production or production stage, where the main reporting has not yet taken place.

Call for applications for the Fellowship open once a year in February, with a deadline in April. Applications are shortlisted in house then put to a jury panel of industry professionals who select the winning applications. Our new Fellows are announced in May.

We consider each application individually, both in terms of the proposed project, and the applicant’s profile, experience and career ambitions.

We are looking for stories that highlight the voices of people living in the global south, particularly those that are not often heard. We seek original stories, told in engaging ways. We encourage positive, empowering, and solutions oriented pieces, considering the context and working in partnership with local people.

Due to the large number of applications we receive, we are not able to provide individual feedback on applications that are not selected. Here are some of the most common reasons for applications not being shortlisted: access not secured, budget not feasible, project too large scale, topic or characters not original, applicant too early or advanced in their career, research not thorough enough. It could also be that there was nothing wrong with your application and simply there were other stronger applications, so we encourage that you try again next round, with an updated proposal.

We support small scale projects that can be delivered in a year. This differs depending on the type of media you work in, however for documentary films, this is under 30 minutes.

You have one calendar year to complete your proposed media and deliver either a short film, a print article, an audio or a multimedia piece.

We expect you to have the majority of your budget in place at the time of your application, and ready to start production. There are no restrictions on receiving more funding during the process, as long as you keep us informed, and the changes in the scale of the project do not affect your delivery to One World Media. While we fully support your journey to receive commissions and reach further audiences, we still expect you to deliver a short piece of media within one year.