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OCTOBER UPDATE
Welcome to the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s October update. In this newsletter, you’ll find highlights from across our work, as well as the latest opportunities for you to get involved. If you don’t regularly receive our newsletter, you can subscribe here.
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Maria Ressa to open Trust Conference 2021
We’re extremely proud to announce that Maria Ressa will open this year’s Trust Conference - taking place online on November 17-18.
Maria’s unstinting and courageous work to protect freedom of expression and access to information as Co-Founder and CEO of Rappler – a digital media company for investigative journalism in the Philippines – are world-renowned. She has demonstrated extraordinary leadership in efforts to uphold these civil liberties, in a world where democracy and free, independent media are increasingly threatened.
The Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism
This month we hosted the 20th annual Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism online, where we recognised the 2020 and 2021 winners for their brave reporting on conflict, corruption and injustice.
We also heard from the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Samantha Power, who in a powerful tribute to Kurt described him as "one of the bravest, most tenacious journalists [she had] ever known" and someone who "took profound risks in order to expose truths that people did not want reported".
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s new sentence to be upheld
On October 16, we received news that our colleague Nazanin had lost her latest appeal and that her sentence of one year plus a one-year travel ban has been upheld without a court hearing. She now risks being sent back to prison at any moment. Once more, Nazanin’s fate hangs in the balance. Her family remains torn apart, with her husband Richard and daughter Gabriella thousands of miles away from her in London.
A week later, on October 24, Richard announced he was staging his second hunger strike in two years to demand justice for his wife. We join the Free Nazanin campaign in calling for her immediate release.
Highlights from across our focus areas:
Media Freedom:
Trust Conference 2021. A core focus of Trust Conference is on addressing the surging threats to media freedom - including online harassment against female journalists and the impact of financial vulnerability on news outlets’ editorial independence. Join us on November 18, the second day of the forum, to hear from leading figures such as Co-founder of Mada Masr Lina Attalah, Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism Rasmus Nielsen, Reuters’ Editor-in-Chief Alessandra Galloni and Founder of Rukhshana Media in Afghanistan Zahra Joya, as they examine today’s challenges to independent journalism.
Inclusive Economies:
Compensation models for community health workers. Community health workers (CHWs) are people who are trained to provide basic health services in neighbourhoods around the world. Despite acting as a trusted source of primary healthcare, CHWs are often unpaid or underpaid. In Africa, only 14% of CHWs are salaried - the vast majority are volunteers with some or no compensation. This month, in collaboration with Community Health Impact Coalition, our global pro bono service, TrustLaw, launched a report that compares compensation for community health workers in Brazil, Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa.
Bridging the gap? An analysis of gender pay gap reporting in six countries. Together with the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London and the Fawcett Society, TrustLaw released legal research on gender pay gap reporting across six countries - the UK, Australia, France, Spain, Sweden and South Africa. The analysis, which builds on the 2020 report “Gender Pay Gap Reporting: A Comparative Analysis”, ranks the UK joint-last for the strength of its reporting system.
Human Rights:
COP26: Everything You Need to Know in 4 Minutes. In the latest episode from our Briefly video series, Laurie Goering - our Climate Change Editor - answers some of the most pressing questions on COP26, which kicks off in Glasgow this Sunday, October 31.
National Coming Out Day. On October 11, Openly - our LGBT+ news platform - posted a Twitter thread to celebrate #NationalComingOutDay, encouraging the Twitter community to share their stories.
This month we recommend:
Attend: Rory Peck Awards 2021, November 16. Established over 25 years ago, the Rory Peck Awards honour freelance journalists in news and current affairs - specifically the video journalists, filmmakers and camera operators who work in difficult circumstances, often without the formal support or back-up of a media organisation.
Attend: ASEAN’s Premier Virtual Corporate Sustainability Conference, 24 - 25 November. The two day summit aims to ignite awareness, identify best practices and showcase innovative approaches in sustainability investment.
Read: 'Wage theft' in UAE robs African deportees of future. Group deportations of migrant workers are common in the UAE and often result in wage theft, where migrants are suddenly sent home and unable to access weeks - sometimes months - of unpaid wages.
Read: The Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) 2021 Impunity Index. In its annual Global Impunity Index, the CPJ reports that no one has been held accountable for 81% of journalists’ murders over the last 10 years.
Opportunities at the
Thomson Reuters Foundation
We are the corporate foundation of Thomson Reuters, the global news and information services company. We work to advance media freedom, foster more inclusive economies, and promote human rights.
