27th March 2018
By Tom Law

ILO Migration Journalism Fellowship Programme: 2018 Fellows


2018 Fellows

Meet the 10 fellows selected by the Ethical Journalism Network and the International Labour Organization for the 2018 fellowship programme for journalists and media practitioners aims to support quality reporting on labour migration in the Middle East.


Aisha Elgayar

Aisha Elgayar is an Egyptian Journalist based in Kuwait. Aisha has a vast amount of experience in journalism having worked in media for over 20 years. She currently works at ElQabas Online in Kuwait. She writes about education, women’s issues and human rights.

She earned her fellowship from the GIJN for her investigation into human trafficking in the workforce in Kuwait. She works too as a freelancer at ” AL-FANAR MEDIA” which focuses on high education. Her reporting has also covered women and human rights in Kuwait. Aisha received the ARIJ annual award at their annual forum in 2017 for her investigation “Cheated Education” in Kuwait.


Ana V. Ibáñez

Ana V. Ibáñez is a reporter at The Jordan Times newspaper with a focus on education, labour and social issues. Her undergraduate dissertation in Communication Studies was about the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in social movements, with a study case on the Arab Spring and the 15M movement in Spain. She graduated from the University of Valencia in Spain, Ana started her journalism career at local news Channel La Pobla Televisió. Prior to her move to the Middle East, Ana has worked for the international EFE news agency and collaborated with several radio stations on social magazines. In addition, Ana is a member of International Amnesty in Spain, and part of the UN Women Training Centre e-learning Campus.

Her three articles published as part of the fellowship were:

Her other work published by the Jordan Times on labour migration during the fellowship included:


Daniela Sala

Daniela Sala is an Italian, Rome-based, journalist, video-maker and photographer. Her works appeared on The Guardian, News Deeply, Open Migration, RaiNews24, Corriere della Sera, Avvenire. She works as a contributor for Radio Radicale. Her work focuses on Labour exploitation, Gender and migration issues, and Mental Health. She reported from the Middle East, South America, Vietnam and Europe. She is the co-founder of Inclusive Media, a platform that enhances cooperation between European and Middle Eastern journalists.

She holds a Phd in Journalism. In 2017 she graduated from WSP Masterclass in Documentary Photography in Rome. In 2017 she was awarded Premio Morrione for Investigative Journalism for a web-doc on mental health in Italy. In 2016 she received Sabrina Sganga grant for a multimedia piece on migrants’ fight against mafia and labour exploitation in Southern Italy. She was a panelist at the Women on the frontline conference on human trafficking in Beirut in March 2018.

Online Profiles: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

Her articles published as part of the fellowship were:


Hannah Patchett

Hannah Patchett

Hannah Patchett is a freelance journalist based in Amman. She has worked as a reporter, producer and editor across the Middle East since 2009. She mostly writes on political and humanitarian issues. Her recent work includes:


Hazm Almazouni

Hazm Almazouni is a freelance Syrian journalist, who has lived in Jordan for the last 5 years because of the war in is homeland. Hazm studied Political science in Russia Moscow and is fluent in the Russian language. In 2013, he started a career in Journalism at Radio al-Ballad – a community radio station in Amman which covers issues related to Syrian refugee issues in Jordan. 

Online Profiles


Mazhar Farooqui

Multiple-award-winning investigative journalist, Mazhar Faroqoui brings over two decades of experience in leading newspapers. When he began the fellowship he was Editor of XPRESS, a tabloid newsweekly published by Gulf News that focuses on the many communities that live in Dubai. During the fellowship, he was promoted to Features Editor Special Reports at Gulf NewsHe has previously worked in leading newspapers such as The Times of India, Hindustan Times and Pioneer. Farooqui is routinely invited by media institutes to deliver talks on investigative journalism. He has been living in Dubai since 2005.

Online Profiles: LinkedIn: Mazhar Farooqui | Twitter: @MazharFarooqui | Gulf News

Farooqui’s investigations as part of the fellowship included: 


Meera Ravi

Meera Ravi

Meera Ravi is a third-gen writer and journalist and began her career at age fifteen, writing for the international Junior Statesman, an iconic Kolkata youth newspaper about a local student strike.
That set the pace for her future writing and in her four decades of professional writing, she has made the space to follow and report on subjects such as labour issues, human rights and women’s rights as well as local politics.

Meera has worked as Bahrain correspondent for Gulf News and the Khaleej Times and as News Editor and Special Correspondent for the Bahrain Tribune. She currently writes a fortnightly current affairs column in the local Gulf Daily News, in which she highlights migrant issues regularly. She is Editor of the only Asian diaspora monthly Salaam Bahrain for the past 11 years. Meera has also worked very closely with the migrant community in a personal capacity.

Read Meera’s articles as part of the fellowship here.


Michelle Fe Santiago

Michelle Fe Santiago

Michelle Fe ‘Maxxy’ Santiago is a Senior Correspondent and Consultant of ABS-CBN Middle East Bureau/The Filipino Channel, a Senior Reporter at the Arab Times in Kuwait and Founder/Program Director of Pinoy Arabia FM in Kuwait. 
 
Maxxy has covered a wide spectrum of stories ranging from culture & arts, human rights abuses, labor problems to other socio-political issues. Her reports have exposed the plight of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) especially the Filipino domestic workers in Kuwait and the Middle East. A non-embedded war correspondent during the US-led war in Iraq in 2003, she has covered the repatriation of OFWs caught in conflict in Iraq, Libya and Syria. 

Online Profiles


Mohmmed Saeed 

As part of the ILO/EJN fellowship on labour migration , a reporter for the Al-Madina, a daily newspaper in Saudi Arabia, wrote a series of stories the relations between Saudi workers and immigrant labour.

Read Mohammed’s articles here. 

Online Profiles: FacebookTwitter


Rabiya Jaffery

Rabiya Jaffery is a journalist and multimedia producer based between the UAE and Saudi Arabia. She reports on climate, sustainability, human rights, culture, and politics for a variety of local and regional publications.

Online Profiles: Twitter

Her articles published as part of the fellowship were:

During the fellowship, she also published:

Sowt Podcasting (Sowt)

Supported by the EJN/ILO fellowship, Sowt has launched a podcast series “Migrant Rights, Our Responsibility” that tell stories that describe “the reality of hundreds of thousands of people who live with us and know a lot about us, but we know little about their experiences and daily battles.”
  • The first episode “Workers awaiting public amnesty” hears from domestic workers who are in a shelter waiting to for their employment rights to be reinstated and to be able to return home.
  • Download and listen to the episode here.
  • The podcast will be released weekly for 6 weeks.
  • The series is available on  iTunes and soundcloud.

Sowt is a podcasting startup focusing on producing Arabic audio content for an on-demand and digital audience.