ILO Migration Journalism Fellowship Programme: 2017 Fellows

2017 Fellows

Meet the 10 fellows selected by the Ethical Journalism Network and the International Labour Organisation for the 2017 fellowship programme for journalists and media practitioners aims to support quality reporting on labour migration in the Middle East.

Ala’a Shehabi

Ala’a Shehabi has been working on employment/labour related issues for the past two years at the Work Foundation in the UK and is an expert in labour issues in the UK, EU, the Gulf States and Lebanon. She has written on Middle-East matters in Foreign Policy, the Guardian, Jadaliyya and al-Akhbar in the past and co-edited a book entitled Bahrain’s Uprising.

Online Profiles

• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Alisa Reznick

Alisa Reznick is a freelance journalist and photographer from Flagstaff, Arizona. She has been based in Amman, Jordan for the last three years covering human rights, the Syrian conflict and migration. Her work has appeared in PBS, Al Jazeera, TIME, PRI and the Middle East Eye, among others.

Online Profiles: Website, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn

Alisa produced three reports as part of the fellowship:

• Radio host in Kuwait creates lifeline for abused Filipino domestic workers (BBC)
• After grisly murder, Kuwait and the Philippines face diplomatic crisis over domestic worker abuse (Global Post)
• As Jordan’s garment sector grows, activists push for better migrant workers’ rights (Middle East Eye)

Angel L. Tesorero

Angel L. Tesorero is a reporter for the Khaleej Times, the UAE’s first English daily newspaper. Prior to joining the Khaleej Times, Angel was a reporter for Pinoy Weekly in the Philippines. At Khaleej Times, Angel has covering several beats, including Asian communities, labour and migration, the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority, and Dubai Immigration.

Angel produced a series of reports as part of the fellowship:

• Fight against human trafficking and promotion of fair recruitment (Khaleej Times)
• Obtaining working visas in the United Arab Emirates (Khaleej Times)
• Visas Amnesty for Workers in the United Arab Emirates (Khaleej Times)

Ezzeldeen Al Ntour

Ezzeldeen Al Ntour, a Jordanian human rights journalist and photographer, working as a researcher with Business and Human Rights Resource Centre. Ezzeldeen has worked with Jordanian media platforms 7iber and Amman-Net, and regional media platforms Al Araby Al-Jadeed and Al-Fanar. He has documented and reported on human rights and labour issues in Jordan and the Middle East through photography and research papers. Ezzeldeen has also done research on Syrian child labour in Jordan for Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, and on Arab youth and labour issues for Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.

Online Profiles: Twitter, Instagram

Ezzeldeen produced three reports as part of the fellowship:

• Where do the Egyptian workers live in Jordan? (Raseef 22)
• Challenges of women’s work in the agricultural sector (AmmanNet TV)
• To be published in May 2019

Heba Kanso

Heba Kanso is the Middle East Correspondent for Thomson Reuters Foundation based in Beirut, Lebanon. She covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights, migrant rights, climate change and much more across the Middle East region. Heba is a videographer, photographer and writer.

She was previously with CBS News in New York for almost eight years. Heba started her career on the CBS News foreign desk coordinating coverage and breaking news from around the world. She was also a digital journalist for CBSNews.com where she produced, wrote, shot, edited and reported stories on everything from politics to education to racial tension.

Online Profiles: Website, Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram

Heba produced three reports as part of the fellowship:

• Migrants in Lebanon seek to break stereotypes with new radio show
• Can matchmaking create happy homes for employers and migrants in Lebanon?
• Trapped by the system, Ethiopian workers in Lebanon see no freedom

Islam Alzeny

Islam Alzeny is a freelance media trainer with a passion for investigative reporting. Alzeny has carried out more than 10 in-depth stories about human rights and corruption in the Middle East. Islam previously worked as an economic correspondent for Reuters and as a producer at Al Jazeera. He is now working as Social Media and Outreach Advisor for BBC Media Action, in addition to carrying out investigations independently.

Online Profiles: A Corruption-Free Society

Islam’s reports as part of the fellowship will be published in August 2018.

Laura Secorun Palet

Laura is an independent journalist obsessed with borders and everything that crosses them. Born in Barcelona, she writes about development, migration and trafficking of all kinds. Her work lives on Newsweek, The Guardian, Slate, Fortune, NPR and others. These days, she spends most of her time in East Africa and the Middle East she previously lived in Spain, France, Italy and the U.K. working towards a double major in political science and international relations as well as a MA in international journalism from City University, London.

Online profiles: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Website

Laura produced four reports as part of the fellowship:

• The Perils of Housecleaning Abroad – Domestic migrant workers in the Middle East continue to face confinement and abuse. (NYT)
• In Lebanon, a Controversial Approach to Ending Domestic Worker Abuse (News Deeply)
• Domestic Workers Are Using WhatsApp to Organize and Escape Abuse (VICE)
• Rising in the Middle East: Forced Labor from Africa (Oz)

Nizar Hassan

Born and based in Beirut, Nizar Hassan is a researcher and journalist trying to understand social injustice and contribute to the struggle against it. He has worked as a reporter for the Beirut-based newspaper The Daily Star and written for other regional outlets, and his non-journalism work has been in nonprofit projects and communications consulting. He recently completed an MSc in Labor, Social Movements and Development at SOAS, University of London, and came back to Beirut to look into issues of political economy, activism and worker exploitation.

Online Profiles: Twitter | LinkedIn | SOAS Profile

Nizar covered the issue of domestic workers in Lebanon as part of the podcast, he co-hosts The Lebanese Politics Podcast.

The main topic of the tenth episode was about “racism in Lebanon, the plight of domestic workers, what is happening, why it needs to change, and why change has failed to materialize so far.”

The discussion of domestic workers begins at 16:40.

Sawsan Tabazah

Sawsan Tabazah is a freelance reporter in Jordan. Sawsan started her career as a journalist in May 2016 after she graduated from the University of Jordan with BA degree in Applied English. Her main journalistic interests are women, youth and human rights causes.

Online Profiles: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn

Sawsan produced three reports as part of the fellowship:

• Recruitment agencies under fire for ‘demeaning’ domestic workers ads (Jordan Times)
• The dark side of domestic ‘servitude’ (Jordan Times)
• Domestic worker says she experienced ‘slavery’ with her employer (Jordan Times)

Watch Sawsan’s interview about the challenges reporting on domestic workers in Jordan.

VM Sathish

VM Sathish was a senior Indian award-winning journalist and former Khaleej Times reporter. After leaving Khaleej Times, Sathish launched a digital portal called Expat News and Digital Malayalee, where he reported on the Indian community in the UAE.

Sathish sadly passed away in February 2018  after suffering from a heart attack on a visit to the UAE.

Read Sathish’s obituary in the Khaleej Times.

Read the Press Release in Arabic and English.