Around 20 journalism students will be sponsored by Fojo project every academic year to carry out their internship in vibrant media houses around East Africa and Sweden.

The Fojo project started in 2014 at School of Journalism and Communication (SJC), after realising there was a lack of capacity and professional knowledge a amongst journalists in Rwanda.

Every semester Fojo sends between five and 10 experienced Swedish journalists as volunteers to the SJC.

The volunteers provide practical training and personal feedback to students and lecturers.

It is through this initiative that the project has gone the extra mile to negotiate with large media houses in East Africa and in Sweden for SJC students to pursue internships there.

Merit

According to the project co-ordinator, Alex Buyinza, students will be selected based on merit. Those with good grades will be given first opportunity.

“This will help graduating students to engage, learn, advance and broaden their skills working with big and well equipped media houses with a number of experts in journalism,” said Mr Buyinza.

Mr Buyinza told Rwanda Today that they have agreed with Daily Monitor to give space to three students every academic year.

“We will soon approach other media houses in Kenya and Tanzania, with our focus on Nation Media Group,” he said.

He added that they had also had discussions with Makerere University to collaborate with University of Rwanda through a student exchange, programme exchange, lecturers exchange, masters degree programme and research.