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>> Cristi Hegranes: I went to Nepal to do the job that I always wanted to do. I always
wanted to be a foreign correspondent and to cover stories internationally.
While I was working my tail off and trying my best, I realized I wasn’t the right person
to be telling the stories.
>> Voice-over: Cristi Hegranes is a highly trained journalist, studying at the prestigious
Poynter Institute for Media Studies before getting her masters in journalism
at New York University.
>> Hegranes: I didn’t speak the language. I didn’t have the trust of the local people,
because I was an outsider.
After spending time in Nepal trying to convince locals to open up and tell their stories,
she realized that despite all her training, in the end she was and always would be the
outsider, and that would be a difficult obstacle to overcome.
>> Hegranes: Oh, you're so sweet. I’m so happy to see you!!!
>> VO: Which is why she decided to go to work with insiders.
>> Hegranes: All of the indicators from World Health Organization and the United Nations
tell us that when you invest in local women, they reinvest in their community. So that’s
really the first agent of change for us -- is employing and investing in these local women.
>> VO: Cristi started recruiting women she could teach to become journalists to work
for her new organization called the Global Press Institute, GPI.
>> Hegranes: We want our stories to be different and better than every other story coming out
of Nepal.
So anyone who takes our training program and completes it for six months gets a job offer
from GPI. We offer for them long-term employment so they can put the skills that they’ve
just learned to practical use.
The training curriculum as GPI focuses on really traditional, rich, ethical investigative
reporting. So it’s not blogging, it’s not more citizen-journalism kind of style,
it’s really rich, traditional, ethical storytelling.
And you guys alone can show the world a different side of Nepal – both good and bad.
>> VO: Cristi looks for women who are willing to work hard, to learn, and most importantly
who have a desire to better themselves. One of her prize reporters is Tara Bsattarai.
>> Tara Bsattarai: Myself, I like to write stories about women related issues.
>> VO: Tara saw an advertisement for GPI back in 2007. The job offered an opportunity she
and many other women in Nepal couldn’t have dreamed existed.
>> Bsattarai: When I was a child, at that time for the ladies, not allowed to to school.
So I struggle to go to school. I was also at that time parentless.
>> VO: After [Tara was] working as a reporter for five years, Cristi promoted Tara to editor
of the GPI news desk in Nepal.
>> Hegranes: You know that our mission is to do three things for women around the world
– educate, employ and empower them using journalism.
We strive for innovation in the stories we tell and we want our stories to be different
from any other media’s stories.
These women, Tara in particular...in so many ways I consider her almost like the co-founder
of GPI, because she has demonstrated that it works.
>>VO: On this day Tara’s assignment is to interview a woman who is the victim of domestic
violence and has been kicked out of the house by her husband.
The interview starts slowly; Tara does most of the talking. But as she continues her conversation
the woman gradually becomes more comfortable and is soon opening up about the hardship
she has faced.
After 90 minutes – Tara has enough for her article. As soon as she completes this story,
she will move on to the next, and the next, focusing on women’s issues that are overlooked
in Nepal’s media.
>> Bsattarai: GPI is very important because Nepal is a very poor country and there’s
lots of problems here.
>> VO: She walks through the streets, a strong confident woman. Nothing like the girl Cristi
first met.
>> Hegranes: Someone like Tara who 6 years ago was a very different person in a very
different place and today she walks into a room and people want to shake her hand. And
she can get interviews in any government ministry and she’s powerful. She’s powerful and
people read and recognize her stories and that’s really great to watch.
>> Paige Stoyer: Everything that’s in that frame, the viewer sees, and sometimes something might
be distracting.
VO: The women who are hired as reporters for GPI receive professional training
If they can produce good reports on important issues, it can mean worldwide exposure through
syndication for themselves and GPI.
>> Stoyer: And when you take a photo the shutter opens and closes to let in light to make the
photograph.
As I told the women during the training, there are photographs that have changed history,
that have changed the course of a war, or changed a civil rights or social movement.
>> VO: But the focus at GPI is not just producing news content.
>> Stoyer: After they go through this training they understand the power they have -- with
their words and now with their photogrpahs. As one of the girls said last night, "my stories
are all around the world," –- with this sense of pride. And you’re talking, too,
about women who often didn’t have much of a voice before.
>> VO: And with their new voices, these young reporters are focused on giving others like
them their own chance to be heard.
>> Yam Kumari Kandel: I have to raise the voiceless people’s voice that I'm really
happy because I have a tool, a skill to raise the issues of the voiceless people.
>> VO: You can sense the emotion in Yam Kumari Kandel’s words – her work as a reporter
is important. In fact, she feels her reports on climate change and health issues in Nepal
are the most important thing she has done in her entire life.
>> Kandel: I’m really very happy to work with my team and with the GPI team. I’m
really, really very happy – I don’t have any words to express my happiness really!!
>> VO: Each of the GPI reporters is equally impressed at the life changing opportunity
offered to them.
>> Usha K.C.: I never thought that I would become a journalist one day and my voice would
be a global voice one day. It's amazing thing. It's amazing, it’s amazing.
>> VO: Offered to them by Cristi Hegranes.
>> Hegranes: We are now in 25 countries, in virtually every region of the world. We employ
more than 120 women. The opportunity means so much to these women, and it's been really
truly extraordinary to watch them use this opportunity to not only change their own lives
and their families' lives but literally the lives of millions of people. In the hands of women journalism
can be a change maker for the entire community.
>> VO: Grinnell College proudly recognizes Cristi Hegranes, founder of the Global Press
Institute with a 2012 Grinnell Prize for her work in international journalism and women's
economic empowerment.
The Prize honors young innovators and leaders while acknowledging the College's history
of social change. Congratulations to founder Cristi Hegranes and the Global Press Institute.