BUSPH Students Collaborate on International Journalism Project Featured in ‘BU Today’.

A team of students spent two weeks in Kenya last May for an intriguing interdisciplinary project that merged public heath and public affairs journalism.

Pamoja Together, a collaboration between BUSPH, the BU College of Communication, and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Response and Reporting, was featured in a BU Today article that highlighted the work of the students and faculty involved with the project.  Jennifer Beard (SPH’06), an SPH assistant professor of international health, and Monica Onyango (SPH’99), an SPH clinical assistant professor of international health, are two of the faculty associated with the effort to link BU students with their counterparts in Kenya to produce rich, in-depth stories about the effects of foreign aid. 

From BU Today:

For students interested in a public health or a journalism career abroad, the opportunity was irresistible: travel to Kenya for two weeks and come back with stories about how foreign aid has changed recipients’ lives.

Last May eight BU students earned that chance through Pamoja Together, a student-powered global news network that is part of BU’s Program on Crisis Response and Reporting—an interdisciplinary collaboration between the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, in Washington, D.C., the College of Communication, the School of Public Health, and the Center for Global Health & Development. The project was funded by a $100,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Tom Scott, director of global brand and innovation at the Gates Foundation, says the foundation liked the project because it spotlights “fresh voices of young people and connecting them with a donor country and a recipient country.” The experience, he adds, could someday lead students to become strong advocates of foreign aid.