Watch What Bloomberg Volunteers are Doing in India

As a global news organization with more than 2,500 media professionals across 192 locations, Bloomberg recognizes the need to support and train the next generation of local journalists, and is committed to developing greater diversity in broadcasting talent.

Bloomberg volunteers around the world work with various non-profit partners to help achieve these ambitious goals. This month, we are proud to expand our involvement with Video Volunteers, a community media organization that equips men and women in some of the most remote and poorest areas of India with the skills they need to inspire action against poverty and inequality through journalism. One in four video reports produced through the program have an impressive track record of actually solving the problem they are trying to address in that community.

In 2014, five volunteers from Bloomberg News in Mumbai and New Delhi each took responsibility to advise two Community Correspondents. Through videoconferencing technology like Skype, the mentees received a total of 12 hours of counseling each to learn the essence, best practices, and techniques of video journalism.

Bloomberg volunteers also helped the Community Correspondents add more context and value to their videos. This helped the individuals frame better, more informed questions for authorities as well as the affected people. The mentors gained confidence in providing professional guidance and used their journalistic skills to help produce reports on important social issues impacting local communities.As of the end of the first series, 14 videos documenting local issues were produced and published on YouTube. The topics range from poor infrastructure in village schools to reports about the impact of high fluoride content in drinking water on health of villagers.

You can watch these videos here and learn more about Bloomberg’s education and mentoring programs here.