ADH Fellows

The ADH fellowship experience has exposed Victoria to data visualisation, infographics, and maps in her story telling. Her experience with journalism has mostly been in television and radio broadcast, this is her first in depth community investigation story that she plans to publish using multimedia. She has enjoyed the visualisation support from the Orodata Science team as well as the focus on data as an element of the story telling. She has found the journey exciting.

Edith has learnt a lot from the ADH Fellowship experience. Her close interactions with her mentor have given her insights into data journalism.

In this fellowship, Derick has learnt that data journalism is not a thing of the future; it is now. He has discovered how incorporating data in his storytelling can really improve the quality of journalism he produces.

Through ADH Rosemary has learnt the importance of Data analysis and Data visualisation in Journalism. The trainers introduced her to the world of breaking down the hard concept of data into simple language, from sourcing, verification transfer, analysis and use of visuals, the practical part of the training with our coaches was well articulated as they moved step by step through the training. She has realised that data is no longer a luxury but a necessity while telling stories and as we move into a data world, Journalists should not be left behind.

Dishon enjoyed the ADH training fellowship session. He has found the mentorship during the Fellowship beneficial to the development of his data journalism skills. He has acquired data sourcing and data visualisations skills that are essential in successful data storytelling, and has also learnt more about how to access publication channels for his data stories.

The Community Journalism Fellowship included training sessions before the fellows started their investigation and reporting, Adesola enjoyed the training session facilitated by Orodata Science. The training opened his eyes to a lot of elements a journalist has to look out for in community investigations, with insights on the relevant data sets and how to locate them, and how to interpret a data set in the present context. The resources provided in the fellowship helped him tell this particular story on a large scale. His data story has been published on The Nation, Ripples, and Naija News.

The fellowship has been a great experience for Israel, using a range of visualisation tools (e.g. infographics, maps, charts, etc). Finding data to support a story can be easy if you are familiar with data, but there can be technical challenges in incorporating that data in a story in a meaningful way; the technical support that is available on this fellowship for visual communication has been very helpful. The ADH fellowship has allowed him to pursue a story idea he had because the funding and support is made available for this.

Karen has experience writing Lifestyle and Entertainment pieces in print and online for The Nation. This Data Journalism Fellowship has given her the opportunity to share the stories of people living with Fibromyalgia and how they cope with everyday life. Karen aims to publish in print and digital using photographs to tell this story.

Discovering the value that data can contribute to a story has given Trevor fresh enthusiasm for the work he does. As an intern at KBC Trevor was able to pitch this data story with the broadcaster and hopes to tell a positive story about how Kenyan policies and programmes have been effective in controlling Malaria in Kenya.

From my studies, journalism has been about storytelling and meeting deadlines, but I have discovered that data is an important part of telling credible stories

This fellowship gave Henix the opportunity to examine the implementation of the two-thirds gender rule of law in Kenya. He became aware that women leaders continue to face numerous challenges while rising through positions of leadership. Henix works with a Community Radio station: Pamoja FM - the voice of Kibera (a large informal settlement in the heart of Nairobi). Finding and analysing data related to this topic has helped him tell this story while still being sensitive to the lived experience of this community. Patriarchy is still a challenge facing this society.

Ronald's experience from this fellowship has changed his perspective on journalism. He previously thought journalism was about justice and justice stories and has been surprised to find that it’s deeper than that, he realized data journalism is about telling a story through numbers, in everyday language for people concerned to derive meaning.

The fellowship has provided Winny with the opportunity to get hands-on experience producing a data story with support and assistance from experienced data journalists. She has enjoyed learning about Tabular and actually using it to sort and analyse data for her story.

The ADH fellowship has given Tunde unique insights on how to approach stories with data as evidence, and data journalism as a career. The fellowship has “initiated [Tunde] into real data journalism.” He has been exposed to the importance of statistical investigation and data visualisation as an approach to producing evidence based stories. Through the fellowship he has realised the importance and scope of community based journalism, and he plans to tell more community based stories; it has changed his perspective on having to travel far for “big” news stories.