Journalism scholarship to study disaster management

This might suit one or two New Zealanders.  It’s an East-West Center journalism scholarship to tour Asia-Pacific countries in May studying disaster management and resilience. Although NZ is not on the tour schedule, it would be nice to have a New Zealander in the group, not least because of the perspective gained by Cantabrians this past year and those helping rebuild Christchurch.

Here are the details:

Dates:  May 13 – 27, 2012

Study Tour Destinations:  San Francisco, California; Honolulu, Hawaii; Tokyo, Japan; Sendai, Japan

Who Can Apply:  Mid-career journalists with a minimum of seven years of experience in journalism. Media professionals from print, broadcast and online news organizations, including reporters, writers, editors, producers, columnists, bloggers and editorial writers can apply. Participating journalists will include four Japanese, four Americans, and four journalists from China and Asian and Oceanic countries bordering the tectonic Pacific Plate. These countries include Fiji, Indonesia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Islands, Taiwan, Tonga, and Vanuatu. Journalists who specialize in topics related to the specific theme are preferred. Fluency in English is required.

Application Deadline:  Monday, March 12, 2012

And here’s more from the blurb:

The 2012 Disaster Management and Resiliency Journalism Fellowships program will introduce participating journalists to a broad range of disaster management activities in the United States and Japan as well as post-disaster challenges to political, economic and energy resiliency. In San Francisco, journalists will examine lessons learned from the Loma Prieta earthquake that struck the San Francisco Bay area of California on October 17, 1989 and measured 6.9 on the Richter scale. In addition, California, particularly the San Francisco area, is considered a leading U.S. example of disaster management as well as renewable energy development. Honolulu, meanwhile, will provide the journalists with a more regional understanding of disaster prevention and mitigation and will include additional examples of alternative power generation. In Japan, the journalists will visit the capital city for an assessment of how the Japanese government and disaster-response agencies handled the Great East Japan Earthquake and the resulting tsunami and nuclear crisis; and what lessons were learned. Additionally, the journalists will examine nuclear power and energy policy in Japan from a variety of perspectives. In Sendai, the East-West Center will expose the journalists to the personal side of natural disasters through discussions with students, aid workers and community members. In both the United States and Japan, the role and responsibility of the media to accurately report on disasters will be explored.