The Network of Women in Media, India (NWMI) is pleased to announce that Augustina Soreng has been conferred the Seventh NWMI Fellowship instituted to support women journalists working in challenging situations.
Augustina, 34, is from the Adivasi-majority district of Simdega in Jharkhand. She wears many hats: she has been a teacher, a grassroots activist working on forest rights and a video journalist. She began her journalistic career in 2021-22 when she was conferred the “Meera Fellowship” run by another NWMI member, Neetu Singh, to support rural women journalists.
In August 2023, Augustina launched her YouTube channel Augustina Simdega and has since been doing stories on Adivasi girls and their rights, forest rights, displacement and environment. She has been generating awareness about the Constitution among the Munda, Kharia and Oraon, the most populous Adivasi communities in Simdega district. Augustina has also been raising awareness and mobilising people from her district to pursue land titles under the Forest Rights Act, 2006.
More about her work here.
The NWMI Fellowship – open only to members of the NWMI – is supported entirely through voluntary contributions from members. It consists of a modest monthly stipend of Rs.10,000, and consistent mentoring from a nurturing community of women media professionals. Sharing of contacts of media houses and editors, guidance and skill-sharing to pitch story ideas, video-making and editing, or to strengthen the viability of independent media ventures, is an important part of the solidarity and support extended by the network.
More about the NWMI Fellowship and past fellows here.
