The eleventh edition of the Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon Scholarship is now open. Once again this year, it is open to all young journalists and reporting technicians under the age of 35 who have already worked in radio for at least two years and who reside in one of the following French-speaking countries: Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Comoros, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Mauritius, Mauritania, Niger, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal, Seychelles, Chad, Togo, Tunisia, and Rwanda.
Created in tribute to its two reporters murdered on November 2, 2013, in Kidal, northern Mali, this scholarship is awarded each year to a young African journalist and a young African technician. Ten journalist candidates and ten technician candidates will be selected on the basis of their applications and then invited to attend workshops from October 14 to 29, 2024, delivered by RFI's internal training department at the SRTB premises in Cotonou. At the end of these workshops, the jury will meet to select the winners of the scholarship, both journalists and technicians, who will receive four weeks of training in Paris, fully funded, during the first quarter of 2025.
On the occasion of this eleventh edition, a new "Prize from the Association of Friends of Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon" has been created. It will reward two deserving candidates who did not win the grant by awarding them a grant in equipment that will be useful to them in their future careers. The winners will be selected by the Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon Grant jury, as well as by a representative of the Friends of Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon Association.
The scholarship will be awarded on November 2, a date designated by the United Nations as the "International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists" in memory of Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon. The scholarship will be awarded during a ceremony in Cotonou. The winners will receive a month of training in Paris.
The jury will include representatives from France Médias Monde, the Sciences Po School of Journalism, and INA, a representative from the media in Benin, and a representative from the Association des amis de Ghislaine Dupont et Claude Verlon (Friends of Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon Association).
Applications are open from Monday, August 5 to Sunday, August 25 at midnight, Paris time. To participate, you must download and send to bourserfi2024@rfi.fr