Kenya Beckons!

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I will join twelve senior news editors and producers selected for IRP's 2012 “Gatekeeper Editors” trip to Kenya.

The International Reporting Project (IRP) has selected 12 senior editors and producers from across the United States and around the world to participate in a nine-day trip to Kenya in June 2012 as part of the IRP’s signature “Gatekeeper Editors” program.

The senior journalists will take part in an intensive program to learn about Kenya. Each year the IRP selects two groups of “Gatekeeper Editors” to travel to a country or region to learn more about critical global issues to help them improve their news organizations’ international coverage. Many Gatekeepers produce stories or blog posts from the trips.

The trip to Kenya June 17-26, 2012, is part of a special International Reporting Project (IRP) bloggers’ trip focusing on issues of family health, reproductive issues and the impact of population growth. 

As one of the first non-profit journalism programs in the United States, the IRP has sent more than 400 journalists in all media to more than 100 countries to report on global issues. One of its programs takes groups of up to 12 senior editors and producers on what it calls “IRP Gatekeepers” trips. These trips, between 10 days and two weeks long, are intensive reporting trips to one country. The IRP has been to India, China, Indonesia, Brazil, Peru, Egypt, Lebanon/Syria, Turkey, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Liberia and Rwanda. The IRP has run 16 of these trips since 2000. Its sole purpose is to give journalists the opportunity to meet people on the ground and to report on important issues. It has no political or social agenda, other than to facilitate good journalism.

The trip will look closely at issues of family planning and health. The group will have a very busy schedule and will spend virtually every day visiting urban and rural residents, talking to youth leaders, doctors and health officials, leaders at NGOs, looking at the environmental, health and social impact of population growth. The group will begin in Nairobi’s Kibera community, where it will tour maternity clinics and sanitation projects with the nation’s largest and most vulnerable demographic, Kenya’s youth. It will then travel to Lake Victoria to the towns of Kisumu and Kogelo where it will examine the impact of overpopulation on local health issues, look at cultural and religious aspects of population growth and see how local women (including Sarah Obama, President Obama’s step grandmother) are working with village groups.

The group will also travel to a pristine region such as Laikipia, where it will examine the effect of human population growth and migration on wildlife and water resources. On its return to Nairobi it will meet with government health officials and also with university students to discuss their views of the future of Kenya.

If you’re unfamiliar with IRP, please take a look at www.internationalreportingproject.org, where hundreds of stories are posted from the reporting trips by the nearly 400 journalists who have received our grants over the years. 


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