Last month, we announced [1] six new Rising Voices citizen media projects in partnership with the Open Society Institute’s Health Media Initiative [2]. This month, we're pleased to introduce our new Public Health Editor, Juhie Bhatia [3]. Her job will be to report on the progress of our newest micro-grantees in Romania, South Africa, The D.R. of Congo, Ukraine, and Russia, and to keep abreast of worldwide citizen media related to public health.
Juhie is a South Asian-Canadian journalist, who is passionate about global health issues. She has worked as a health reporter and editor for almost ten years. She has reported for Reuters Health from India and Thailand, but also a string of other media, including MSNBC.com, Bulletin for the World Health Organization, Women's eNews, and the website EverydayHealth.com, which she helped create (and still works for as an editor). She is currently based in Paris, France.
Juhie has also volunteered for several social justice and health organizations over the years, including women's resource centers, a sexual health NGO in South India, and the Alliance for South Asian AIDS prevention where she led workshops on HIV/AIDS.
We're really pleased to welcome Juhie to Global Voices, and work together with her to expand our coverage of citizen media concerning public health. In her first post [4] on Global Voices today, she looks at Indian bloggers’ reactions to proposed legislation in the state of Maharashtra that would make HIV/Aids testing mandatory before marriage. Welcome Juhie!