Fellowship

Diellza is a Danish-Albanian woman from Copenhagen, Denmark. She studies Journalism at Roskilde University and works at the Danish Parliament as a student assistant in the press department for the green political party Alternativet. She has experience in political communication, press management and social media. Diellza is passionate about documentary storytelling and visual communication. She looks forward to investigating new ways of communicating climate journalism and meeting the other aspiring journalists.

Meral Jamal was born and raised in Dubai, UAE, completed high school in Pune, India, and moved to Canada in 2017, where she completed her Bachelor of Journalism at Carleton University. She is a reporter for CBC North’s Nunavut newsroom and the newsletter editor with LiisBeth, a women’s entrepreneurship publication in Toronto. She spent the summer of 2019 in the Yukon as part of Stories North, an initiative by Carleton professor Kanina Holmes to get journalism students involved in experiential reporting. Her time there taught her about reporting with Indigenous communities instead of on/about them. She enjoys building relationships and community wherever she goes, which she’s pretty sure is the result of growing up in a noisy family of 20. She’s competitive at karaoke and terrible at puns.

Sara Tingström grew up in southern Sweden’s coastal pearl, Karlskrona, and currently lives in Stockholm. She has a bachelor’s degree in environmental journalism and previously worked at the local newspaper in her hometown. In January 2020, she was accepted to WWF Sweden Youth, a non-profit leadership program for young people, which runs until the end of 2022. She currently works as a communicator for WWF Sweden Youth and takes courses in graphic design and project management. She has a passion about sustainability, diversity and climate justice. She believes in the power of youth and inclusive storytelling. She’s looking forward to exchanging perspectives and deepening her knowledge and understanding in environmental journalism. Photo by Bernhardina Hörstein.

Joël Ndongmi is a third-year student at the University of Toronto. He is currently studying Diaspora and Transnational Studies, Political Science, and English literature. He is interested in political media, photography, and world cultures. During his time at the University of Toronto, Joël got involved as an Arts & Culture columnist at The Varsity (U of T’s student newspaper since 1880.) As a Laidlaw Scholar, he pursued research about the media portrayals of Muslim women in American newspapers. He approached his research with a feminist lens under the supervision of a political science professor. In his spare time, he enjoys cooking and refining his photography skills.

Ólöf is from Reykjavík, Iceland. She has a BA in Social Work and is currently pursuing an MA in journalism at the University of Iceland. Alongside her studies she works for the Icelandic National Broadcaster (RÚV) as a part-time journalist. She’s very passionate about environmental issues and has been since she was a teenager, so the fellowship focuses of environment and journalism feel made for her. Her hobbies are photography, film, camping and cooking.

Fern was born and raised in Victoria, BC, Canada. She moved to Montreal where she is completing a major in Journalism and a double minor in Political Science and First Nations Studies. Fern is the assistant news editor at the Concordian, one of the universities student newspapers. Fern’s mother is Ojibwe from the Whitefish River nation, and her father is from England. Fern’s parents raised her surrounded by activism, thus since she was a kid, she has always been involved and interested in environmental and Indigenous issues. In her journalism, Fern always tries and focuses on Indigenous angles, and her goal is to create more spaces for Indigenous voices in media. Fern’s main skills are in writing and audio, but she loves documentaries and photography. The fellowship means that Fern will be able to expand her skills, make connections and meet all the wonderful people involved in the fellowship.

Thomas Kellermann Hansen comes from a small town outside Copenhagen in Denmark but studied in Aarhus and completed his bachelor’s in journalism from The Danish School of Media and Journalism in January. As a part of the education, he completed an internship at a big, Danish newspaper and is right now working at a regional paper near Copenhagen. He loves to give people a voice and to write about what matters to people. He is looking very much forward to expanding his horizon to environmental journalism and meeting the other fellows in order to do so. He currently lives in Copenhagen.

Teaghan Haysom is originally from Edmonton, Alberta. She moved to Ottawa in the fall of 2020 to work as a page in the House of Commons. She enjoyed having this first-hand experience with the Canadian Legislative system. She is now in her second year at Carleton University pursuing a BA in Journalism and Humanities. She is currently a writer for Carleton’s public affairs paper, the Kroeger Policy Review. Teaghan believes in the responsibility and potential journalists have in addressing the climate crisis. She is excited to work with other young people to create interesting stories about the environment and sustainability.

Andrea Kunz Skrede is from Lillehammer, Norway, but lives in Oslo. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Culture and Communication and is now pursuing a master’s degree in International Environmental Studies. She works as a writer and content creator for the environmental organization Nordic Ocean Watch, and has previously worked for the student newspaper in Oslo. Andrea is passionate about social and environmental issues and the role communication can play in building awareness and provoking change. She believes that collaboration, the exchange of perspectives and creative expressions all play an important part in shaping a sustainable future.

Erica Ngao is a journalist and fact-checker based in Toronto. Currently, she is the assistant digital editor at Reader’s Digest Canada and has written about health, culture and history. As a mentee in this year’s Solutions Journalism Network mentorship program, she’s passionate about reporting on impactful stories at the intersection of fashion and climate change. Her work has appeared and been featured in ELLE Canada, This Magazine, and the Nieman Journalism Lab. Previously, she was an Editorial Fellow at The Walrus. 

Laurie Trottier is a French-Canadian from Quebec currently living in Yukon, where she works as a reporter for the French newspaper in Whitehorse. Her studies in journalism, her bachelor’s degree in International Law and International Relations, and her travels have all quenched her thirst for knowledge and allowed her to meet people with different opinions and realities. To her, that’s what journalism is all about: cultivating empathy and inspiring change. Throughout this fellowship, she hopes to learn more about solution-oriented (impact) journalism, improve her story-telling skills and meet other passionate emerging journalists.

Leif Lonsmann has more than 40 years of media experience as a journalist, editor, head of development, editor in chief and CEO for the Danish National Public Service broadcaster (DR). Leif has 30 years of experience in teaching, education and media consulting in more than 30 countries. He has published more than 100 articles in public media and professional magazines, and has contributed to a series of books and papers on media and journalism. Since 2018, he has worked as an independent consultant, media adviser, and a senior manager at the Nordic Journalist Centre, specializing in climate journalism, covering of the Arctic region, the Barents and Nordic regions and Indigenous and circumpolar affairs.

Lief is mentoring Thomas and Teaghan.

Ingerid Salvesen is a journalist based in Oslo. She has written and produced stories for several of Norway´s largest newspapers and media companies, especially covering climate change and the environment. She holds a master’s degree in Environment and development studies and was a journalism fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in Oxford in 2018, where she studied the role of journalism in a warming world. 

Ingerid is mentoring Norah and Lauren.

Heidi Hendersson is an environmental journalist based in the Åland Islands. She did her BA in communications at Helsinki University and spent 6 months at University of Tasmania studying environmental journalism. Since then, she has been on reporting trips to New York, Israel, Iceland, Estonia and Germany, writing on mostly environmental issues. She has a master’s in sustainability science from Lund University and works part-time for the contemplative sustainable future program at Lund University centre for sustainability. She has also worked for an NGO based in Tamil Nadu, India at the communications department. She is currently working as an environmental reporter at her local newspaper on Åland. She likes writing about lifestyles, minimalism, environmental philosophy and is obsessed with tiny houses (she has spent the last three years building one in the woods of Åland).

Heidi is mentoring Ólöf and Fern.

Mogens Blicher Bjerregård has served as president of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) since 2013. He’s worked as a journalist since the 1980s at local newspapers, local TV and DR, The Danish Broadcasting Corporation. He now consults on capacity building of media organizations and on media development for democracies i.e., through fellowship programmes for the EU – one of them about climate change in the Maldives. Mogens is an expert in authors’ rights; self-regulation; ethical standards including fighting hate and fakes, and a communication advisor on a project for Climate Adaptation in Denmark. For three decades, he’s been dedicated to press freedom and trade union work: serving 16 years as president of the Danish Union of Journalists 1999-2015; being in the founding process of the International Media Support, co-signing the MoU of the Council of Europe Safety Platform, acting as aboard member of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, and representing Denmark at UNESCO IPDC from 2014. Photo by Jakob Carlsen. 

Mogens is mentoring Sara and Joël.

Sharon is an award-winning investigative journalist. She is the prairies bureau chief of The Narwhal, which covers energy and the environment. Her freelance work has also been published by The Walrus, Harper’s, The Tyee, J-Source, Alberta Views, and Maisonneuve, among others. Sharon is the 2020 recipient of the Allan Slaight Prize for Journalism and has been a finalist for awards from the Canadian Association of Journalists, the National Magazine Awards, and the Digital Publishing Awards.

Sharon is mentoring Andrea and Erica.

Mike De Souza is the managing editor of The Narwhal. He’s covered politics for more than a decade, focusing in recent years on energy and environment policies in government and industry. A Montreal native, Mike has worked as a broadcast and print journalist in his hometown, as well as the National Assembly in Quebec City, Parliament Hill in Ottawa and Calgary. He has worked for Global News, Reuters, Postmedia, the National Observer and the Montreal Gazette.

Kanina is a Canadian journalist, educator and photographer, and  the executive producer of CBC Yukon. She is passionate about the power of storytelling to inform, connect and ignite. For the last 18 years she has taught journalism at Carleton University. As a journalist, Kanina has also worked as a producer and reporter at CTV’s parliamentary bureau and as a national reporter for Global Television. She was also a senior reporter with Reuters. Her work has taken her across Canada, Sweden, the UK, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and South Africa. In 2017, she launched Stories North, an experiential learning initiative in Canada’s North that focuses on shifting narratives through reconciliation journalism.

Kanina is mentoring Petra and Laurie.

Trina Roache is a proud member of the Glooscap First Nation, an award-winning Mi’kmaw video journalist, and the Rogers Chair in Journalism at the University of King’s College. Trina has worked in radio and TV for CBC, APTN National News, and APTN Investigates. She’s covered stories in the unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq, Wolostoqey, and Pestomuhkati Nations, from politics to policing to land protection. Her work has earned regional and national awards from the Atlantic Journalism Awards, Amnesty International Canada, the Canadian Association of Journalists, and the Native American Journalists Association. 

Trina is mentoring Diellza, Meral and Silja.