WUNRN
International Women’s Media Foundation – IWMF
http://www.iwmf.org/our-impact/emergency-fund/
Emergency Fund for Women Journalists
We need your help to build an emergency response fund to address
the growing need of our Courage Award winners and other women journalists who
face very real danger around the world because of their work.The women we help
are making the world a fairer, freer and safer place and it is because of their
sacrifices that we are able to understand world events. It is our turn to help them.
To request Emergency Fund assistance, please fill out this form.
We will respond to your request within 48 hours. Please note that due to
limited funding, the IWMF is not able to assist all journalists.
Sometimes
a journalist receives explicit and very imminent threats against her life, and
she chooses to live and fight another day. In these cases, the need for RELOCATION is an unfortunate but necessary
consequence of reporting on hot-button issues.
The IWMF has been able to provide material
and legal support for some of our Courage winners for whom threats crossed that
line. Agnès Tailé, our 2009 Awardee from Cameroon, won the
Courage in Journalism Award for covering politics and ethnic tensions even
after she was kidnapped from her home, attacked and left for dead. After her
return to Cameroon, threats against her became so intense that she fled to the
U.S., where we helped her throughout her petition. Now, Agnès lives with her
husband and son in upstate New York and she is a media entrepreneur. She
started a newspaper and website called “Le Septentrion” that delivers
independent news to Cameroonians and employs journalists from Cameroon.
We also helped to win asylum for Iraqi
Courage Award winner Huda Ahmed, and we facilitated fellowships and supplied
housing for her during her transition to life in the U.S.
MEDICAL AID is something else that our journalists have needed
desperately, and that we have been able to supply. We’ve done this countless
times, but a couple that stand out are:
2008 Courage Award winner Farida Nekzad, who is from Afghanistan, had her first
obstetrician appointment while here to receive her award – only to find out
that she was pregnant!
2006 Courage Award winner May Chidiac, was fitted for her new prostheses at the
National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington, DC, when she came to accept her
Courage Award. May lost her hand and leg to a bomb planted under her car in
retaliation for covering politics and corruption in Lebanon, her home.
More and more, LEGAL ASSISTANCE is an urgent need as governments add
laws to the books that brand coverage of government abuses and exploitation
illegal – labeled “insult,” “slander,” “intent to cause violence” or “terrorism”.
With support from the IWMF, 2012 Courage
Award winner from Azerbaijan, Khadija Ismayilova, was able to take action against
Internet host and server companies that published video footage used to
blackmail her.
We have provided emergency relocation assistance for many,
Courage winners and others, who found themselves in imminent danger. And we
have lined up new work and new contacts to situate those who are forced to
permanently leave their homes.
All of these, and other needs unmentioned and unforeseen, are
crucial to protecting the people who sacrifice a great deal so that we can be
informed.
To be
eligible for IWMF Emergency Fund assistance, candidates must currently be
full-time or freelance women journalists working in print, broadcast or online
media in any country. Candidates employed by organizations whose main objective
is not journalism will not be considered.
To request
Emergency Fund assistance, please fill out this form. We will respond to
your request within 48 hours. Please note that due to limited funding, the IWMF
is not able to assist all journalists.