Solutions Journalism Network

Mpindi Abaas is the CEO and Co-founder of the Media Challenge Initiative, a youth-driven non-profit building the next generation of journalists in Uganda. He believes that good journalism can make the world a better place through the stories journalists tell and that is why he is a passionate advocate of solutions jouranalism. His story has been published in the Huffington post and CNN African Voices and highlighted by President Barack Obama in his #Mandela 100 lecture in South Africa. Mpindi is a 2018 Obama Leader, a Tony Elumelu Entrepreneur and a Young Emerging Leaders Program Fellow. He was also selected by the Government of Uganda to be on the National Taskforce for the adoption of 4th Industrial Revolution.

Originally from Chad, Aché Adoum Attimer is the founder of StopBlabla, an online platform sharing stories of the ways Africans face and find responses to the problems of the continent. She learned about solutions journalism during an international workshop, and has been studying, practicing, encouraging, training others to apply the approach ever since.

Adaobi Ezeokoli is a journalist, editor, photographer and public health advocate. She provided editorial oversight for the Nigeria Health Watch platform in her last role as the Editor in Chief at Nigeria Health Watch, a health communications and advocacy organisation based in Nigeria's capital. She also provided communications expertise and support for various public health research consultancies, reports and publications as Director of Communications at EpiAFRIC, a public health consulting firm in Abuja.

Chibuike Alagboso is a health journalist at Nigeria Health Watch, a health communication and advocacy organization based in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. His writing focuses on highlighting efforts that are tackling public health challenges in Nigeria. He also writes thought leadership articles that provide insights to health sector actors in Nigeria and supports the Nigeria side of the Solutions Journalism African Initiative as Program Manager.

Dina Aboughazala is an experienced Egyptian journalist and the founder of Egab; a media startup that helps local journalists from across the Middle East and Africa publish solutions journalism stories in regional and international media outlets. Prior to launching Egab in 2020, Dina worked for the BBC as a Mideast-focused senior journalist.

Esther Nakkazi is a health and science reporter, a media trainer and the founder of the Health Journalists Network in Uganda. Nakkazi trains and mentors journalists in science reporting. She also contributes to various media outlets around the globe.

Seun Durojaiye is the co-founder of Social Voices, a new digital publication in Nigeria, rooted in public service journalism, using a solutions-based reporting approach. She is also a fellow of the African Women Journalism Project(AWJP) and previously worked as an investigative reporter at the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), where she focused on reporting about issues of Sexual and Gender-based Violence and the plights of women and children in the Nigerian society.

Corinne Podger is a consultant and trainer with a proven track record of supporting newsrooms, NGOs and social impact organizations in more than 60 countries on strategic audience engagement, newsroom product design, multimedia production, mobile journalism, podcasting and online verification and fact-checking; and on global development topics including climate change, COVID-19, media literacy and communicating science. Corinne’s expertise draws on more than 30 years in the media industry as a reporter, editor, lecturer and author. She has taught digital journalism at the Universities of Sydney and Melbourne, and holds a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Cambridge in England.

Kavita Chandran is a trainer and news content adviser based in Singapore. As a journalist for more than 25 years, she has worked in newsrooms across the United States and Asia. She started her career in New Delhi as a business reporter and moved on to anchor shows for CNBC Asia. She worked as a breaking news editor with Bloomberg in New York, and then spent 10 years in Reuters’ newsrooms as a trainer and front page editor. Kavita is currently a journalism trainer with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, where she teaches journalists across Asia about climate change, human trafficking, racial injustice, social inclusion and other global issues. She is also a mentor and speaker on solutions journalism as a catalyst for change in the media. Kavita is a published author of a book, a freelance journalist, and an adjunct faculty member in journalism and communications at Murdoch University, Kaplan Institute, and S.P. Jain Global School of Management. She has a master’s degree in journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication in New Delhi and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University in New York.

Portia Ladrido is a journalist and editor from the Philippines. She is Co-Founder of INKLINE, a media platform based in Oxford, UK, that specializes in solutions journalism. Portia is also the lead convener of the solutions journalism community in the Philippines, and she has led solutions journalism sessions and workshops for WAN-IFRA and the Indonesia Association for Media Development for reporters from Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Timor Leste, among others. Previously, she was an editor at CNN Philippines Life, the digital features arm of CNN Philippines. During her time at CNN, she was awarded the Human Rights Journalism Fellowship by the Philippine Human Rights Information Center for her coverage of social issues.

With an academic background in the humanities and social sciences, Praveeni is passionate about creating positive social change through an initiative she co-founded, Cambiumh, to facilitate a sustainable world through communications and community building. An SJN 2022 LEDE Fellow, Praveeni is creating The H: Humanness Podcast and a training program supporting Sri Lankan youth to report local solutions stories — all in all inspiring, envisioning and enacting solutions to build a positive future.

Sanne Breimer works as a media consultant, journalism trainer, coach and writer. She is currently based in Bali, Indonesia, and works remotely. Before she came to Southeast Asia she worked for 13 years in Dutch Public Broadcasting, mostly in managerial positions (editor-in-chief, program manager and head of digital). Sanne founded Inclusive Journalism with a focus on the topics of equity, decoloniality and mental well-being. She creates courses for journalists on how to use Instagram (for members of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union) and on mental well-being (soon to be released). She coordinates journalism training for Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Swati Sanyal Tarafdar is an independent journalist from India with bylines in international publications including The Guardian, Teen Vogue, Ozy and the BMJ. She covers social and climate justice and teaches journalism to college students. She has worked as an instructional designer for global tech companies and as an adult educationist, apart from being a journalist for a little over a decade now. She’s currently working on a series of multimedia stories to be published on YouTube to engage a younger audience while also orienting local journalists in the principles of solutions journalism.

Catherine Edwards is an award-winning journalist currently based in Vienna and working as a freelance editor and consultant. She has six years’ experience covering European news and culture from Italy, Germany and Sweden, most recently as Europe Editor for The Local, where she also led a solutions journalism training programme with Jessica Phelan as part of an EU-funded project. Originally from the UK, Catherine has a Bachelor of Arts in Modern Languages from the University of Oxford and a Postgraduate Certificate in Journalism Innovation and Leadership from the University of Central Lancashire. Her special interests are community journalism and solutions journalism on migration-related issues and she is a 2022 LEDE Fellow.

Charlotte Horn is a reporter for the Northern German Public Broadcasting, based in Hamburg. She covers breaking news at NDR Info radio. Her work reflects how people are affected by political decisions. Charlotte has gained expertise in solutions stories in the NDR Info podcast “Perspektiven” and at the BBC. A passionate traveler, Charlotte has reported from various countries and regions, including Ghana, Israel, and the South Pacific.

Barcelona-based Elena Ledda is a Sardinian freelance journalist with a degree in foreign languages. Elena practices solutions journalism from a feminist perspective and collaborates with several newspapers and magazines, writing in Spanish (Castellano and Català), Italian and English. She also teaches engaged (civic) journalism and journalistic ethics from gender, class and ethnicity perspectives at the BCN_NY Master Degree in Journalism (collaboration between Universitat de Barcelona and Columbia University).

Esma Kucukalic is a Doctor in the Human Rights, Peace and Sustainability program at University of Valencia (UV); Master in International and European Union Studies and Postgraduate in Journalism with International specialization (UV). She is a Mediterranean Citizens’ Assembly Foundation Director and professor of the Official Master’s Degree in International Journalism at the Rey Juan Carlos University (URJC) where she teaches solutions journalism. Her academic research focuses on ethnicity and citizenship in post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina, and as a journalist on social issues and civil rights.

Hanna Liubakova is a journalist from Belarus and non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council. She works as a journalism trainer and mentor. She started her career at the only independent Belarusian TV channel Belsat where she worked as a correspondent and TV presenter. Hanna has reported from various countries and regions, including Belgium, UK, Poland, France, and Chechnya. She was a recipient of the Václav Havel Journalism Fellowship at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Czechia, as well as a World Press Institute Fellowship in the United States. Hanna received a degree in Art History from The Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland in 2010 and a Master of Art with distinction in International Journalism from Brunel University in London in 2017. She was awarded the Peter Caws Prize for best postgraduate dissertation.

Jeremy Druker is the Executive Director and Editor in Chief, of Transitions, a media development organization that he co-founded in 1999, as well as a professor at New York University’s campus in Prague. He is also CEO and the founder of Press Start, a crowdfunding platform designed specifically to support journalists where the press cannot report freely.

Jessica Phelan is a digital and broadcast journalist currently based in Rome. Originally from the UK, she has reported from France, Germany, Japan and Italy for a range of digital media and radio, including Radio France International, PRI, Monocle and The Local. She first got involved in solutions journalism via an EU-funded project to broaden media coverage of migration, through which she and colleagues led SoJo-focused webinars and workshops for more than 150 journalists across Europe. Her special interests include community engagement and solutions reporting for radio.

After graduating from Vilnius University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s degree in politics, Justina Ilkeviciute began her journalism career as a scriptwriter and editor of various TV shows. In 2019 she joined Lithuanian National Radio and Television as a business news editor, from 2021 she is based in Brussels as a correspondent for European Union affairs. In 2021 she participated in LEDE Fellowship and launched LRT is Looking for Solutions — the first and only solutions journalism project in Lithuania working across TV, radio and online.

Stay Tuned!

Lisa Urlbauer is the Journalistic Training Coordinator at the Bonn Institute in Germany. Previously, she was a trainee at a daily newspaper in Bremen, northern Germany. She studied in the Mundus Journalism Master’s Program in Denmark and the Netherlands, where she specialized in politics and communication, and worked as SJN’s European Communities Associate.

Lucie Černá works for Transitions where she leads a program promoting Solutions Journalism in Central and Eastern Europe. She is involved in the topic since 2017, currently she is also mentoring journalists in the central European region helping them to bring solutions lens to their reporting practice.

Mara Bierbach is a journalist based in Bonn. She works for Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international broadcaster, wearing multiple hats including author, editor, and social media manager. She reports on migration to and within Europe and holds a BS in Economics and a MA in North American Studies.

Meenal Thakur is a Project Manager at the European Journalism Centre (EJC), where she works on EJC’s grant programs, which help Europe-based newsrooms and freelancers become more resilient and financially sustainable. Her work also involves capacity-building among these journalists through trainings, connecting them to new skills and ideas to foster innovation in their reporting projects. Prior to joining the EJC, Meenal worked on mapping the Press Freedom landscape in Nepal with Free Press Unlimited, an Amsterdam-based non-profit.

Nicole Ely is a social media manager at Transitions Media. She began her career as a journalist and editor in the San Francisco Bay Area and later in Las Vegas. Five years ago, she relocated to Prague to study at Charles University, where she received a master’s degree in International Security Studies with a focus on disinformation and terrorism.

Olha Virsta is a communication manager at the Ukrainian Regional Press Development Institute, a partner organization of Transitions. She coordinates a project promoting solutions journalism in Ukraine and trains regional journalists in gender-sensitive reporting. Olha holds a master’s degree in journalism with a study on alternative media at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.

Rhiannon Davies is a teaching associate at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, where she runs courses for undergraduates and postgraduates studying digital journalism. She also runs a solutions-focused community magazine and is interested in the power of hyperlocal news and engaged journalism practices to create social impact.

Stay Tuned!

Sophie Roland is an independent filmmaker based in Paris. She has worked for more than 20 years for French Télévision, including popular investigative programs such as “Envoyé Spécial” and “Cash Investigation.” She is preparing a solutions-oriented investigative magazine for French TV. Sophie is an SJN’s 2021 LEDE Fellow and she trains French TV journalists in solutions journalism.