What are the benefits?
- Year-long, remote programme of support
- £1000 production grant
- Executive producer for your project
- Fair Reporting and Security Guidance
- Industry workshops + webinars
- Network of like-minded Fellowship alumni
What are the benefits?
We are thrilled to introduce the 11 talented
journalists and filmmakers selected to
join this year’s One World Media Fellowship.
The final selection of Fellows for the One World Media Fellowship 2023 will be made by a jury of experienced industry professionals.
Filmmaker and Founder of TAP Media Ltd.
Executive producer, Guardian Documentaries Multimedia
OWM Trustee
Producer-Director (TV & Film)
Mentoring is an opportunity to nurture young talent, develop new voices and connect with the next generation. If you would like to act as a mentor for our Fellowship please contact us.
Controller of BBC Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra | Director, Speech Audio
Health Correspondent, KQED Public Radio
Producer & Director
Filmmaker
Executive Producer in TV Current Affairs
Freelance Consultant + Executive Producer
Documentary Filmmaker
Director & Cinematographer
Director & Founder, We Are Not The Machine
Director and Executive Producer, Ronachan Films
Producer and Director
Deputy Editor of Panorama, BBC
Executive Producer
Investigative Reporter
Journalist & Founder of Africa-Related
Filmmaker
Filmmaker
Journalist
Producer & Director
Independent Media Consultant + Freelance Executive Producer of Global Documentaries
Journalist & Filmmaker
Photojournalist
Founder + Managing Director of Dartmouth Films
Photojournalist
Editor, Digital Documentaries, BBC News Arabic
Senior News Controller, BBC World Service Group
Creative Director, Woodcut Media
Journalist, Thomson Reuters Foundation
Multimedia Journalist
Director and Producer, True Vision TV
Filmmaker & Editor
Journalist & Founder of Egab
Journalist
Producer/Director
Executive Producer
Executive Producer
“This Fellowship truly uplifts media coverage in the global south. There are so many stories, including about refugees, that are grossly underreported. The organisation’s effort to empower journalists around the world is a powerful way to make local voices heard and told by local journalists.”
Since 2001, One World Media has supported nearly 300 emerging journalists and filmmakers to report from over 100 countries. This has grown into a welcoming and collaborative community of One World Media alumni – a community that our Fellows have the invaluable opportunity to become a part of.
Find out more about our previous Fellowship cohorts:
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.
Broadly, countries in the global south are located in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia (excluding Israel, Japan, and South Korea), and Oceania (excluding Asia and New Zealand). Global south countries are largely recognised through identifiers such as low standards of living, low income-economies, high poverty levels, deficient health systems, amongst other factors.
As the list of countries which are considered to be global south can vary, we draw on both this list compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Population Review’s Global South Countries 2024 list, and we would consider entries from countries on either of these lists.
We support non-fiction media across all platforms: film, print, audio, photojournalism, and multimedia.
We would like to hear from early to mid-career filmmakers and journalists from the global south who are reporting on stories from the global south.
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 March. 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 June.
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.
The One World Media Fellowship is made possible thanks to the generous support of our partners: