Financial Assistance GrantsSAJA provides Professional Financial Assistance Grants to working journalists to help them pay for training, professional development, and other qualifying miscellaneous costs associated with reporting and editing. The grant essentially functions as a reimbursement of up to $500 per applicant for costs incurred during calendar year 2022. A broad range of activities may be eligible, including: conference registration, course fees, training materials like books and software, equipment like cameras or recorders and costs associated with fact-checking. Applicants with financial hardships will be given special consideration. Application deadline is Nov. 30, 2022. APPLY HERE. Selection/EligibilityThe grants are open to journalists of South Asian descent and journalists based in the United States involved in active reporting on South Asia. Applicants must be employed at news organizations located in the United States or be working as full-time America-based correspondents for South Asian media outlets. Freelance journalists, photographers and videographers are also eligible for the grants. The following persons are ineligible to apply: (a) current Board Members (b) any person who serves as a judge in screening and selection of candidates for grants under this program and (c) immediate relatives of (a) and (b) above. Evaluation ProcedureApplicants must submit a statement clearly and concisely explaining how they would use the funds. A committee of judges appointed by the SAJA Board reviews the applications, which will be evaluated based on financial need and the relevance and importance of the activity the grant recipient will pursue to fulfill their professional needs and SAJA's goals. Applicants may be interviewed by phone, video-calls or in-person by a member of the board. Award processRecipients will submit receipts or other documentation associated with approved costs, and SAJA will reimburse them. Recipients are expected to become SAJA members if they are not already and give back to SAJA by volunteering at SAJA events. They should commit to promoting SAJA activities, events, membership drive and donation appeals on social media platforms in order to help SAJA achieve its mission and expand the network. All recipients of the professional development fund grants must also agree to provide an update on their journalistic achievements one year after the award is given. SAJA reserves the right to post excerpts from these statements on the SAJA website and social media platforms to share with the public the impact of the program. Here are some of our recent awardees:
Fatima Bhojani reports on foreign policy and counter-terrorism. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs. She tweets at @bhojanif.
The SAJA Scholarships are made possible through generous contributions from the Krishna Kumar Gaur Scholarship Fund, the Arun I & Asmita Bhatia Foundation, and numerous individual and institutional donations. To donate to SAJA and help future scholarship classes, please click here. The SAJA Scholarships and other educational and training programs are made possible through generous contributions from individual and institutional donations. To donate to SAJA and help its programs: |
Aisha
Sultan is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who also hosts a
weekly podcast and appears as a regular radio and TV commentator. Her
work has run in more than a hundred publications, including the The
Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. She has won
several national awards recognizing her column and feature writing. Her
work focuses on families and social change. Twitter: @AishaS
Pavni
Mittal is an award-winning broadcast journalist from India. She spent
nearly four years at CNBC-TV18 in Mumbai where she interviewed some of
the biggest newsmakers of our times and became the first and only Indian
journalist to have hosted an international session at the Cannes Lions.
After graduating from Columbia Journalism School with an M.A. in
Politics & Global Affairs, she joined Al Jazeera English's New York
bureau where she was a producer on the first Un Secretary-General debate
and Trump's victory on election night. A Brooklynite, she loves
cooking, taking long walks, and rooftop views.Twitter: @pavnimittal
Binoy
Prabhakar is a fellow at the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial
Journalism in New York and a senior editor at The Economic Times,
India's biggest business daily. He was previously the deputy editor of
ET Magazine, the paper's weekly Sunday product. Binoy has been a
journalist for the past 17 years, the last 11 of which he has spent with
The Economic Times. He has worked with India's leading newspapers such
as The Hindustan Times, The Times of India and The Indian
Express.Twitter: @binawy.
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