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Amy Fallon

I am a widely-published and versatile freelance journalist and communications specialist who has worked around the world for a plethora of leading media outlets and organisations. Please scroll down to see my work. I have reported from Australia, the UK, Africa, Asia, and Canada. I have covered a broad range of topics but I am most interested in social justice, human rights and international development. I have worked for international news wire agencies, newspapers, consumer magazines, trade journals, and more. I have worked as a staff reporter in Australia, from the newsrooms of most of the UK national papers, for magazines and trade journals, done consulting for NGOs, and more. I am completing a human rights masters and a communications degree. I am available for story commissions, media advising, copywriting and content writing. 


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The Guardian •

Soap opera could be unlikely form of birth control in Uganda

Uganda has one of the highest birth rates in the world. It also has some of the most dedicated soap opera watchers anywhere in Africa. Now a group of enterprising Ugandans is aiming to tackle the former through the medium of the latter. Soap operas are expensive to make, however, so they plan instead to “hack” a Venezuelan import, recutting the existing series and overdubbing it with Ugandan actors. Using content originally from Nacer Contigo (Reborn), the new show has been rescripted and turn

Equal Times •

Around the world, activists are campaigning for menstrual dignity

Around the world, there is a growing call to ensure that all women and girls can menstruate with dignity. After Gemma Abbott began volunteering with The Red Box Project, a community initiative that distributes free menstrual products and underwear to young women in the UK, she was shocked by some of the stories she heard. “I vividly remember one woman who approached me at an awareness-raising stall in a supermarket, to tell me that she had grown up without sufficient menstrual protection,” rec

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Equal Times •

What's behind the rise in defensive design?

People in central London sit on one of a number of ‘Camden Benches’ dotted around the city. It is what artist Stuart Semple calls a “textbook example” of “hostile design”. When US$20,000 worth of studs were installed on the surface of a fountain in a downtown Toronto park in 2017, the upset felt by some locals was tempered by a general acceptance that the measure – designed to prevent damage caused by skateboarders – was necessary. The studs weren’t overtly antagonistic – at least not compared

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Mobilisation Lab •

#KeepItOn campaign’s ‘shutdown stories’ offer a lesson in listening, adapting and participation

When the #KeepItOn campaign team received a photo of a dirt track from a citizen affected by an internet shutdown, they were puzzled. “We were saying ‘why (did) this person send us this photo? It doesn’t make any sense’,” says Melody Patry, advocacy director at Access Now, the digital rights nonprofit that has convened the campaign with 141 organizations from 59 countries. It eventually emerged that the sender had no internet where they were, forcing them to trek on foot and then get the bus t

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Mobilisation Lab •

When people power meets litigation: A history-making success story in Sierra Leone

It was a people-powered case that led to a landmark decision. In November 2018, a court ruled that SIVA Group, a billion dollar conglomerate headquartered in Singapore, must return 41,500 hectares (103,000 acres) to villagers in the Port Loko district in Sierra Leone’s north and pay a fine of US $250,000. SIVA had vowed when it leased the land in 2011 to create 8,000 jobs for the community and put local children in school. However, it failed to pay residents rent for three years, the country’s

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delicious.com.au •

What it's really like inside a Hare Krishna camp (words and pics)

There's more to this Northern NSW farm than meets the eye. Here's what really goes on at a Hare Krishna retreat, tells Amy Fallon. “I might move here,” a woman I’ve just met in the communal bathroom says to me. “I’m sick of the real world. I’ve been doing it for 40 years. It’s not going anywhere.” Gazing out at the “unreal” world, if you like, the lush green hills in a tiny part of Northern NSW that belong to New Govardhana, a thriving Hare Krishna community boasting scrumptious vegetarian foo

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Devex •

In Nairobi, a landmark push for a global blue economy

TORONTO — Some 4,000 people are set to gather in Nairobi this week for the first global conference to focus solely on the sustainable blue economy. Hosted by Kenya, with Canada and Japan as co-hosts, the event will be the first to focus on how to channel global water resources in sustainable ways to enhance development. Described as a “bold initiative” by Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta, the Sustainable Blue Economy Conference is expected to draw participants from some 180 countries, as well a

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The Independent UK •

How a running tour of a township in Cape Town showed me another side of South Africa

“The only stories that you hear about our hood are negative, but we have so many positive stories,” says our guide Vincent Ntunja, as we begin our 10km run on a Saturday morning just outside Mzoli’s, a restaurant famous across South Africa for its barbecued meat. The Gugulethu township may not be the first place that springs to mind when you think of doing a running tour of South Africa. And Ntunja himself prefers shooting hoops to pounding the pavements, if it comes down to it. But five years

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Pacific Standard •

Can a Web App Help Reduce Nigerian Food Waste?

Oscar Ekponimo has created a program that notifies retailers in real-time when their food items are approaching expiry and lets them initiate discounts on them. Oscar Ekponimo, the Nigerian inventor of a Web app improving food accessibility and affordability for poverty-stricken people, had his "epiphany" when he was strolling the aisles of a supermarket in 2014 and unearthed a can of tuna that was about to expire. "I pulled [the can] off the shelf and I said to the shopkeeper, 'Hey look, expi

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Devex •

In South Africa, ATM pharmacies help fill a massive shortfall

ALEXANDRA, South Africa — When Thapelo — name changed to protect his identity — went to government clinics to collect medicine for chronic blood pressure, the lines were so long that he was often forced to take the day off work. And at times, he’d even leave without his medication. “The line is very long and then they say, ‘you may come tomorrow,’” said the 58-year-old, “it affected my health.” South Africa needs about 12,000 pharmacists to fulfill the international standard of 50 pharmacists

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Malnutrition Deeply •

Nigeria Turns to Technology to Reduce Food Waste and Fight Hunger

Oscar Ekponimo, the Nigerian inventor of a web app improving food accessibility and affordability for poverty-stricken people, had his “epiphany” when he was strolling the aisles of a supermarket in 2014 and unearthed a can of tuna that was about to expire. “I pulled [the can] off the shelf and I said to the shopkeeper, ‘Hey look, expiring in a matter of a week,’” the 31-year-old software engineer explained. They were “throwing away food that was still consumable because it had reached its expi

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Equal Times •

Can innovative design help improve low-cost housing in Cape Town?

This photo from February 2017 shows one of the first Empower Shack structures in the township of Khayelitsha, Cape Town. This year, the low-cost housing project was nominated for the prestigious 2018 RIBA International Prize. In the lounge room of her two-storey home made from corrugated iron, timber and hollow-core blocks, Magau Mhlupheki is washing clothes using a big plastic bucket. It’s a new experience, even though her water usage is limited by the restrictions put in place to prevent the

Thomson Reuters Foundation •

South Africa pushes to combat HIV among girls #blessed by sugar daddies

More than 10 percent of young women in South Africa are HIV positive JOHANNESBURG, March 26 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Before 20-year-old Lebogang Motsumi even had sex with her first "blesser" - or sugar daddy - a successful, married, company boss more than twice her age, he handed her a wad of cash. He was soon making regular deposits into her bank account, paying her rent and taking her out in exchange for sex, which the young single mother readily accepted as she had a three-month-old b

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News Deeply/Women's Advancement •

In Uganda, Unmarried Women Must Fight to Keep Their Homes

Kampala, UGANDA – After almost two decades living with a man nearly twice her age, who first got her pregnant when she was 15, Jane Zamukunda finally had one small comfort: a nice home that she felt was hers. Her partner and father of her three children had bought a piece of land in the Nansana suburb of Kampala, where they built a house together. It was comfortable by most standards, with furniture and a TV. But most important to Zamukunda, now 28, was the fact that she had a key to the house:

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