Master of Global Communications candidate Isabel Robinson has been awarded an Endeavour Research Fellowship from the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations and will spend next semester in Papua New Guinea.

There, she will be supported to undertake field research for Population Media Centre, a non-government organisation that works worldwide using entertainment-education for social change. In Papua New Guinea, the organisation is developing two radio serial dramas addressing issues such as gender equality and women’s empowerment, education, family planning, HIV/AIDS prevention, environmental protection, and other related themes. This project has been adopted under the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Campaign in PNG.

Isabel will be working in a communications and research capacity with Population Media Centre, while also completing a thesis that will contribute towards her Masters of Global Communication with Honours degree at La Trobe University.

It will be Isabel’s third time in Papua New Guinea and she says that is “very excited about returning to this fascinating country, as well as the personal and professional opportunities that the scholarship will provide.”

Isabel is part of the first cohort of Master of Global Communications students. The degree was launched at the start of 2009. Several of Isabel’s articles and profiles of journalists can be found here on upstart. As part of her degree she has also completely a successful internship with ABC’s Radio Australia Today program.