Meet our fall fellows Meena Morar and Will Schick!

Our Urbanist Journalism Fellowship is continuing this fall with two young journalists: Meena Morar and Will Schick. Please welcome them to GGWash!

When DCist was shut down in November 2017 and the future of Washington City Paper looked uncertain, we were worried about the state of local journalism. Even though those two outlets are now thriving, there’s still a dearth of opportunities for budding reporters to gain paid experience. And at GGWash, we frequently have ideas for in-depth stories and investigations that we simpy don’t have the capacity to cover with existing staff and volunteer contributors.

So we decided to launch this fellowship to help local journalists build their careers, gain more of a background in urbanism, and provide our readers with an even richer array of stories. We also specifically wanted to lift up voices and perspectives that aren’t as prevelant on the site. This fellowship is focused on urbanism through an environmental and equity lens, which is how we’re now trying to orient all of our coverage. In our reporting we’re also looking for solutions, not just problems.

AJ Earl and Christina Sturdivant Sani were our inaugural fellows, and this year we expanded the program to a spring and fall season. ThienVinh Nguyen and Natasha Riddle did a fantastic job in the spring, and now they pass the baton to Meena and Will. Here’s a little more about them.

Welcome Meena and Will!

Meena Morar is a current junior at Georgetown University studying American Studies and Journalism. She is interested in the impact investigative journalism can hold in destabilizing institutions of power in order to promote social change. In the past, Meena has worked on issues surrounding housing inaccessibility, prisoners’ rights, and labor justice.

Meena has interned for Free Minds Book Club, a non-profit centering creative expression within criminal justice reform. In the journalism world, Meena has written for Street Sense Media as a housing reporter, culminating in a story investigating the crisis surrounding DC’s only halfway house, and serves as a senior features editor of Georgetown’s on-campus paper, The Hoya.

Will Schick is a Hill East resident and graduate student studying creative writing at American University. He is also a transitioning veteran who served 11 years in the Marine Corps, where he did multiple deployments to Afghanistan and the Asia-Pacific. An insanely curious polyglot, Will speaks five different languages (Chinese-Mandarin, French, Korean, Spanish, and English) to varying degrees of fluency.

This past summer, Will reported for Street Sense Media, visiting and writing about life in encampments in DC. During this fellowship, he hopes to learn more about how commercial and residential development impacts the lives of people locally. Over the years, Will has written for a variety of outlets to include: Café MFA, Cleaver Magazine, Duffel Blog, The Marine Corps Gazette, and the US Naval Institute’s Proceedings Magazine. In his off-time, Will can be found at local DC non-profit Miriam’s Kitchen where he leads a weekly writer’s group for people experiencing homelessness.

Thanks to the Urban Resilience Project and the Meyer Foundation

Without our partners Island Press and the Meyer Foundation, this fellowship would not be possible.

Island Press is a nonprofit publisher that seeks to better address the interrelated issues of environmental, economic, and social justice in cities, and specifically in the Washington area. Through its Urban Resilience Project, Island Press is exploring what it means for cities to be sustainable, equitable, and resilient into the future.

The Meyer Foundation aims to build a more equitable Washington region in which economically disadvantaged people thrive and in which systemic racism and its consequences no longer exist. It’s working to achieve greater racial equity in housing, education, employment, and asset building.

Keep your eye out for the fellows’ pieces over the next three months. If you have questions or story ideas for them, let us know in the comments.