Our Projects

Pakistan is impacted by seasonal weather patterns, rising temperatures, variability of monsoons, and melting of glaciers in the north of the country. Floods in 2022 affected more than 30 million across the country, especially in the two southern provinces Sindh and Balochistan. Hundreds and thousands lost their lives and homes; there was widespread damage to public infrastructure, and displacement from homes.

The media struggled to cover the immense natural disaster but still managed to cover the floods after they hit. Some reasons for delayed or underreporting of natural disasters in Pakistan is due to lack of human resources, skills, and techniques to cover climate change and the environment. On top of this mainstream media lack the time and space but also has little interest in climate and environmental reporting.

Aware of these issues, Media Unlimited (MU) with support from the Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) conducted a series of workshops in different Pakistani cities in 2023. CIJ works on improving environmental investigative reporting through its Open Climate Reporting Initiative (OCRI).   

The CIJ collaborates with partners that are ‘responsible for coordinating and delivering training to participants across different disciplines, including investigative journalists, trainers, researchers, activists/environmentalists, academics, and development sector workers (NGOs and CSOs)’.

CIJ conducted a successful pilot in Nepal, covering three regions for Year 1 of the project - Latin America (excluding Brazil), Anglophone Africa and Francophone Africa. CIJ also partnered to ‘train 237, directly reaching 2000+ journalists, researchers, and activists/environmentalists in 38 countries.

MU designed workshops in different cities of Pakistan under CIJ’s OCRI with a focus on providing journalists with skills and techniques, to:

● “investigate and expose wrongdoing;

● research and quantify accurate pictures of the situation and the impact of other efforts;

● craft meaningful stories that garner support for changes in policy, regulation or economic actors’ decisions”.

Under the OCRI project, journalists are trained to report on climate change through scientific, financial and political data to find a solution to these issues. The project also guides journalists to use their reporting to influence policymakers to bring long-lasting change.

Working on the OCRI project, MU organised and conducted three two-day workshops in cities in three provinces of Pakistan – Sindh, Balochistan and Punjab.

The first of the three workshops was conducted in Karachi on June 23 & 24, 2023. Participants came from across Sindh – Karachi, Hyderabad, Kashmor, Umerkot, Sukkur, Mithi, and Sanghar.

Zofeen T. Ebrahim an independent journalist and media trainer based in Karachi led the workshop. Kamal Siddiqi and Lubna Jerar held sessions on ethics of journalism and stories through a gender lens. Guest speakers included Dr. Nausheen Anwar - Professor of City & Regional Planning, at the School of Economics and Social Sciences, IBA Karachi, and Director, Karachi Urban Lab (KUL) and Gulzar Khan – data specialist.

The next workshop was conducted in Quetta, Balochistan on July 8 and 9, 2023. Participants attended from Dera Allah Yar, Chaman, Kohlu; Dera Murad Jamali; Loralai; and Quetta.

Shahzeb Jillani was the lead trainer, while Lubna and Kamal conducted their sessions on gender and the ethics of journalism. Guest speakers included Garnaz Baloch – an activist and two experts from Baluchistan’s Met Department.

The third workshop was conducted in the Capital Islamabad on July 19 & 20, 2023. Participants came from Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Kashmir, Peshawar, and Lahore.

The lead trainer for this workshop was Zeeshan Haider, Kamal Siddiqi and Lubna Jerar conducted sessions on ethics of the media and gender. While guest speakers were journalists Umer Draz – Lahore and Ammad Khalid – Islamabad.

After the workshops concluded, the mentoring phase began in which all the participants submitted pitches for stories. Out of all the pitches, only 12 were selected. The 12 mentees were divided into four groups of three mentees. Each group of 3 mentees was mentored by a mentor.

The mentors included journalists Farahnaz Zahidi; Munazza Siddiqi; Shahzeb Jillani and Zeeshan Haider. The mentorship was for three months during which the participants had to do an in-depth story on the effects of climate change and get it uploaded for a site. Out of these three were further selected and given cash prizes.