Natalia Kondrashova, Russian Federation, Moscow
Natalia Kondrashova has worked for a number of independent Russian media outlets. She was a news editor at the Republic, an online Russian forum on economics, and a senior news editor at RBC, one of the country’s largest online media, reporting on business, politics, and social life. Most recently, she was a news editor for the Russian independent channel Rain (Dozhd), reporting on domestic and regional politics, business, and culture. Kondrashova is currently completing a Bachelors degree at Moscow’s Lomonosov State University in public relations and business journalism. She is also studying Eastern European history, politics, and economics. She speaks Russian and English.
As part of her project marking the 50th anniversary of the soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Natalia took to the streets to ask passers-by in Moscow what they thought about the invasion.
Raman Pratasevich, Belarus, Minsk
Raman Protasevich is a journalist from Belarus specializing in new platforms and reaching young audiences. He has worked for some of Belarus’s most popular news media and social networks. He has live-streamed mass protests in Belarus that were otherwise not reported by the country’s tightly controlled media, and has created his own podcast about political life and social problems. He also worked as a freelance journalist and photographer covering the conflict in Ukraine’s eastern regions. Protasevich speaks Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Polish, and English. At this moment Raman is a student at the Institute of Journalism of the Belarusian State University.
Glib Zhavoronkov, Ukraine, Odessa
Glib Zhavoronkov reports on corruption and societal and political issues in Ukraine. He draws on a background in civil society activism and video production to publish across media platforms, using a documentary style. He has produced video reports and live TV shows for Ukraine’s independent Hromadske TV affiliate in Odessa, produced explainer videos and anti-corruption reports for NGOs, and has hosted an entertaining political video blog. Zhavoronkov studied International Relations at Odessa National University and speaks Ukrainian, Russian, and English.
Mahmud Musalı, Azerbaijan, Baku
Mahmud Musali has worked as a freelancer and editor for Azerbaijani media since 2013. During his study in Turkey, through social media, he reported on events in Ankara and Istanbul related to the 2013 Gezi Protests in Turkey. As an editor and writer, he worked for an independent platform "Pahoo.az" in Baku focusing mostly on culture, technology, and entertainment. Musali studied Bachelor’s degree at Middle East Technical University on Political Science and Public Administration and took courses at University of Economics in Prague. He speaks English, Russian and Azerbaijani.
Mahmud launched a series of daily one-minute-long videos for social media, where he announced the most important stories of the day using a voice over with video footage. His videos, which focused on local news, were very popular and drew in up to 120 thousand views.
2017 -2018 Jiri Dienstbier Journalism Fellows
Una Čilić, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo
Una Čilić is a freelance journalist from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her work focuses on digital media development and convergence, verification of user-generated content, eyewitness media, and human rights issues with a focus on the Roma minority. Čilić is a co-founder of a web-based, educational video game called FactChecker, for which she and her team won funding during a Hackathon for western Balkans countries. The game is currently in development and will be used as a tool for broad audiences to learn how to debunk and verify fake content online. Čilić is a regular contributor to online media outlets such as Euronews, Diskriminacija, and MC Online, and has worked as an editor's assistant and project assistant for Media Center Sarajevo, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Kosovo 2.0, The Local/Sweden, and other outlets. She has a Bachelors in Journalism and a Masters in Political Science with a focus on European integration from the Faculty of Political Science in Sarajevo, and holds an MSc in Media and Communication from Lund University, Sweden. Čilić recently published her thesis research on the use of satirical user-generated content in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a means of promoting civic engagement. She speaks Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian and English.
During the annual meeting of the European Regional Certification Commission for Poliomyelitis Eradication, held in May, Bosnia and Herzegovina was labelled as a country of special concern due to an insufficient level of immunization, along with Romania and Ukraine. Una Cilic spoke with doctor Patrik O'Connor, from the European office of World Health Organisation, on the issue of vaccination in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Read her article in full here.
Nektar Zogjani, Kosovo, Prishtina
Over the past five years, Nektar Zogjani has worked as a journalist reporting mainly on political developments in Kosovo. Prior to joining the Insajderi news portal in 2015, a new but rapidly growing media outlet in Kosovo, he was a correspondent for the regional media outlet Balkan Insight, and contributed to the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN). He recently was engaged as a co-author of a research report on employment in Kosovo and the effects of privatization on workers. He has also authored analyses and feature stories, focusing mainly on internal political issues, for local and regional media. In 2014, a report to which he contributed received the First Prize for Investigative Journalism on Poverty by the United Nations Kosovo Team. Zogjani has a Bachelors in Political Science from Pristina University and is completing studies in Journalism at the AAB College in Pristina. He speaks Albanian and English.
Nektar's project analyzes the level of democracy in Kosovo and focuses specifically on the possibilities for citizens and civil society organizations of Kosovo to influence the decision-making of state institutions. Nektar sought to elaborate on issues such as accountability, transparency and division of powers.