Irish Times to take part in global solutions journalism initiative

The Irish Times and more than 50 other media outlets will take part in an international initiative this weekend reporting on how social, environmental and healthcare initiatives are attempting to solve challenges and improve the lives of people around the world.

Impact Journalism Day is organised by Paris-based social enterprise, SparkNews. It involves dozens of newspapers across the world including Le Figaro (France), Politiken (Denmark), Asahi Shimbun (Japan), the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) and the Straits Times (Singapore).

Sparknews started Impact Journaliam Day four years ago with the goal of “identifying, sharing, and amplifying positive solutions to the important problems of our time” by working “with the world’s most important daily newspapers”.

The Irish Times first took part in 2015 and this year's involvement will include a podcast exploring how three NGOs are tackling social problems.

Tony Geoghegan of the Merchants Quay Project, Sarah Keane of Swim Ireland and Paul O'Hara of ChangeX discuss with presenter Hugh Linehan how social enterprises and charities tackle their missions and attempt to improve the quality of life of the people they work with.

In the Weekend supplement on Saturday, Jennifer Duggan reports on a peer-to-peer travel club for older people and a company providing online therapeutic programmes for 60,000 people with mental health issues in Ireland, the UK and the US.

Weekend will also feature reports from other newspapers involved in Impact Journalism Day, including articles on the work of Refugees Welcome in Germany, the steps being taken by a Japanese town that wants to stop producing rubbish by 2020 and an initiative in Lebanon that tackles the problems caused by early marriages.

Other projects from around the world will feature on irishtimes.com

Further information on Impact Journalism Day can be found at impactjournalismday.com