In a major boost to rural and developmental journalism in Assam, journalist Jahida Parbin has been selected for the 11th edition of Laadli Media Fellowship, 2021.
Parbin is one among the 15 selected for the fellowship and the journalists represent 14 states and 8 languages. Furthermore, she is the only one from Assam who has been granted the prestigious media fellowship.
Parbin who hails from Kamrup Rural is a freelance journalist and also contributes to the Assamese daily Gana Adhikar.
"I hail from a remote village in Kamrup rural district. This fellowship is a big achievement for me and the underprivileged women of my village. I want to tell their stories to the world," Parbin said on availing the fellowship.
Parbin who does in-depth stories on gender issues especially in rural landscapes recently wrote a story about an old midwife in her village who delivered over a thousand babies till date. The story focused on abysmal condition of maternal health in the areas around her village.
Parbin commenting on the need to tell stories, said , "When we were young in school, no newspaper ever reached our village. There was nobody to tell the stories of the women of our village. I want to write about them".
The Laadli Media Fellowship focuses on stories about health, disability, panchayat raj, education and the Covid19 pandemic through a gender perspective.
A three months fellowship granted to print and web journalists, the Media fellow receives a fellowship grant of Rs. 50,000 and have to produce four stories.
The other fourteen journalists who have been awarded with the fellowship are — For English: Aritra Bhattacharya from West Bengal , Jyoti Yadav from New Delhi, Shahina KK from Kerala, Bhartesh Thakur from Haryana, and Poorvi Gupta from New Delhi. For Hindi: Puja Kumari from Jharkhand, Vijay Sharma from UP, Inderpreet Singh from Punjab, and Madhav Sharma from Rajasthan. For Marathi: Priyanka Tupe from Maharashtra. For Urdu: Haroon Reshi from Jammu and Kashmir. For Tamil: Indumathy G from Tamil Nadu. For Malayalam: Muhammed Shafeeq K from Kerala. For Telugu: Avula Yamuna from Telangana.
