Introducing the Ojalá + Resilience Fund Grantees
Geographic Map of Mexico and its Lakes as they were in the year 1618. Courtesy: David Rumsey Historical Map Collection.
Ojalá Editorial Collective • January 23, 2025 • Leer en castellano
Ojalá is pleased to announce the five journalists selected as grantees via the Resilience Fund.
We received over 50 applications, which included many urgent, important and interesting proposals. It was not easy to select just five among them. When doing so, we tried to ensure the inclusion of a range of issues from different regions of Mexico, with a preference for journalists with solid investigative journalism chops.
Each grantee will write an original story investigating connections between land defense and organized crime in Mexico. Ojalá will publish the stories in English and Spanish on its website in April 2025.
Over the coming months, grantees will receive editorial support from Ojalá and participate in workshops on interviewing techniques, data journalism, research organization and risk assessment. Journalists and practitioners will lead the workshops. This will include Laura Castellanos, Ricardo Balderas, Dawn Marie Paley and Yemile Bucay. Grantees will share their experiences at a public event in the city of Puebla in March.
We thank everyone who submitted a proposal. Don't forget that we are always open to receiving pitches by email: pitch AT ojala DOT mx.
Meet the participants!
Ana Alicia Osorio González is a reporter based in Veracruz. Her coverage focuses on human rights and she has worked with various outlets including El Dictamen, El Financiero, MVS, Animal Político, SDP Noticias, Agencia Presentes, La Marea, SemMéxico, Pie de Página and A Dónde Van Los Desaparecidos, among others. She founded Testigo Púrpura, the only outlet specialized in women’s rights in the state of Veracruz, which she led from 2017 to 2023.
Pitch: Land defense by women fighting industrial pollution on the part of Petróleos Mexicanos in Poza Rica, Veracruz, a region impacted by organized crime and extractive industries.
Areli Palomo Contreras co-founded Colectivo Linea 84 Periodismo Etnográfico y Acción Comunitaria [Line 84 Ethnographic Journalism and Communitarian Action Collective]. She has carried out journalistic investigations that combine the dynamic power of narrative journalism with ethnographic research. She uses qualitative methods of social research, including immersion in communities, to deepen and discover links that connect local conflicts with the dynamics of global power.
Pitch: The struggle of communities on the Oaxacan coast against dispossession fueled by the tourist industry’s expansion in the region, which has led to increased violence and killings but has not received widespread attention.
Chantal Flores is a Mexican freelance journalist who investigates the impact of forced disappearances. She also covers migration, gender violence and human rights, in addition to other issues. She has worked with media such as Al Jazeera, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Verge, MIT Tech Review, Yes! Magazine, Rest of World, Vice, among others. Dharma Books published her book, Huecos: Retazos de la vida ante la desaparición forzada [Holes: Scraps of life in the face of forced disappearance], which is a multi-voiced account of the experience of families of disappeared persons in Latin America and the Balkans.
Pitch: Resistance against mining and attendant water shortages in northern Nuevo León in a context of the disappearance of migrants.
Laura Jiménez is a freelance journalist who specializes in human rights and has experience investigating gender violence, disappearances and human trafficking. She previously worked at the Investigative Journalism and Data Unit of El Universal.
Pitch: Examining the violence and forced displacement connected to illegal logging and extortion carried out by criminal groups in Texcaltitlán, Mexico State.
Verónica Martínez is a multimedia journalist who specializes in migration policy, border dynamics and feminist movements in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. She has worked as a journalist for USA Today Network Media (El Paso Times and Las Cruces Sun News) and for La Verdad de Juárez. As a journalist, Verónica has reported on border life in the Paso del Norte region, the defense of human rights, and the impact of social and economic activities on local wildlife.
Pitch: Understanding the environmental impact and violence connected to militarization and criminal activity in Ciudad Juarez and the Chihuahuan Desert over the last six years.
