May 21, 2024 | Tuesday

Giving Voice to the Voiceless: K2.0’s mentorship & fellowship programme

By: Luca Tesei Li Bassi, Program Manager at Kosovo 2.0

Kosovo 2.0 is an independent multimedia magazine based in Prishtina, dedicated to creating powerful, uncompromising journalism that amplifies people’s experiences, explains complex realities, provides context, and provokes conversations. With support from the EU, our project “Diversifying Voices in Journalism” aims to promote media pluralism in Kosovo by addressing information gaps in the country’s media landscape.

*Image produced by K2.0 as a feature for the call for blogs

Through our initiative, we provide training and funding to small and local media outlets and media-producing civil society organisations (CSOs), enhancing their financial sustainability and capacity to serve their local communities with high-quality media content. We also focus on building trust and media literacy among young audiences by opening our newsroom and publication to collaborative content development and publication.

Furthermore, we run an intensive fellowship program designed to empower young and aspiring journalists, enabling them to develop their voices and address underreported issues of high social relevance effectively. Additionally, we contribute to progressive and people-centred conversations in Kosovo via our own multimedia productions.

*Image produced by K2.0 as a feature for the call for fellowships

Through our media grants program, we specifically support a variety of multimedia projects aimed at addressing the unmet needs of everyday people, particularly those outside the capital. Projects include multimedia initiatives promoting transparency and accountability in the Municipalities of Kamenicë/Kamenica, Ranilug/Ranillug, and Novo Brdo/Novobërdë; audio and video reportages in both Serbian and Albanian covering social justice, human rights, and marginalised groups in the North of Kosovo; anti-disinformation and transparency journalistic efforts in the Ferizaj/Uroševać region; the production of audio and braille publications to protect the right to information for Kosovo’s blind community; as well as participatory, innovative and grassroots content creation in and around the village of Llukar.

Through our blog production, authored by a diverse cohort of young writers, we are able to present compelling perspectives on Kosovo’s emotional and political landscape. Our blog authors shed light on various challenges faced by Kosovo, spanning workers’ rights, education, migration, environmental degradation, LGBTI+ rights, and more. As K2.0 Editor Aulonë Kadriu remarks, “What I appreciate about this program is that it acknowledges the ability of young men and women to express their own perspectives, recognising them as active members of our society who can critically analyse what unfolds in their surroundings. One remarkable aspect of our bloggers is their capacity to address a range of issues beyond what one might expect to be of interest to the youth, including areas like the health system and infrastructure.”

*feature image for the blog titled From Taboo to Tabloid Press published on K2.0 

Through this project, we continue to invest in supporting quality, public interest journalism, while fostering understanding and trust in the indispensable democratic function of independent journalism among journalism professionals, the media, and the public.