The Federation of Nepalese Indigenous Nationalities Journalists’, FoNIJ is an umbrella organization of all IPs journalists from across the country and abroad in 8 countries including Hong Kong, Japan, USA, South Korea, Europe, UAE, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom.
FoNIJ leads them for solidarity, integrity and professionalism through media advocacy on IPs human rights at national and international level by lobbying and campaigning for inclusive media policy in Nepal.
FoNIJ has 64 district level, 7 provincial chapters and 8 ethnic institutional member organizations i.e. Gurung, Limbu, Magar, Newar, Rai, Sherpa, Tamang and Tharu. There are almost 4,000 members of FoNIJ, 800 of whom are women journalist members. What is FoNIJ
Federation of Nepalese Indigenous Nationalities Journalists, FoNIJ is a forum for the journalists representing indigenous communities to advocate indigenous issues for an integrated development.
It was established as Association of Nepalese Indigenous Nationalities Journalists, ANIJ on 9 Aug 1999 to consolidate all Nepalese Indigenous Nationalities journalists to address issues relating to indigenous people.
In 2015 it was transformed into FoNIJ and registered officially under the Government of Nepal. Currently, it has 64 district level, 7 provincial chapters and 8 ethnic institutional member organizations across the country and 8 abroad countries including Hong Kong, Japan, USA, South Korea, Europe, UAE, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom.
Objectives: -
To provide professional leadership and solidarity among the indigenous media persons, safeguard their professional rights.
To bridge mainstream media and IPs communities.
To facilitate IPs communities by using the media outlets to advocate and raise their voices
To strengthen the capacity of IPs journalists by conducting media and professional trainings.
To organize basic and advance journalism trainings for marginalized and highly endangered communities in order to inspire them to involve in journalism.
To aware non-IPs Journalists about the issues of IPs.
To disseminate awareness against indigenous people's cultural pollution.
To foster institutional development for overall development of all indigenous media persons, for instance, establishing Research Centers and Indigenous Media Academy.
To inspire indigenous community to initiate actions towards achieving rights enshrined in ILO convention 169 and Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
To extend relationship with national and international organizations and initiate advocacy and lobbying for rights of the indigenous peoples.
To disseminate information on the rights and issues of Nepalese indigenous community.
To organize dialogues and workshop to mitigate the misunderstandings between the IP's and non-IP's people
To foster promotion of national peace and stability and mainstreaming development.
What we do
Unite the IPs journalists all over the country.
Lobby to the government and other media organization for inclusive media environment.
Advocate on issues like political, cultural, identity-based rights, traditional knowledge, skills and practices for access to equal benefit sharing to Indigenous Peoples.
Media Training for Indigenous Journalists.
Organize orientations on media literacy for IPs leaders.
Organize consultation meetings between newsroom gate keepers and IPs leaders.
Organize field visits to promote understanding of indigenous rights.
Provide consultations to IPs to establish media outlets like community radios and other community initiatives.
Our Mission
Our mission is to access voices of indigenous community in mainstream media through professional development and media advocacy, lobbying at national and international level and promote democracy, human rights and press freedom.