Photo and socials-first stories on heat solutions in the Global South

Every year it’s getting hotter. This is making it harder to study and earn a living. It’s limiting access to good nutrition and impacting health and well-being. Lives are being put at risk. Urban communities often experience the worst of it, especially when living conditions are cramped and finances constrained. As part of our ongoing series on heat adaptation, the aim of this call for pitches is to shine a light on the experiences of people living with extreme heat and its impact on health in frontline urban communities across the Global South. Just as importantly, we want to learn from these communities what they’re already doing to adapt to heat, and share their stories of resilience with a wider, international audience.

We are interested in all types of solutions as long as they are community focussed. Perhaps these could be changes to the design of homes or community spaces, grassroots organisations or policies that support access to heat adaptations and changes to lifestyles, work patterns or other routines.

What we’re looking for

● Visual-led, from-the-ground stories about the experiences of specific (not generalised) frontline urban communities in the Global South living with extreme heat and its impact on health, and their interesting, under-reported solutions or adaptations to the problems extreme heat brings.

● The solutions should be sustainable, affordable and accessible. They should also be already implemented and working on the ground. They can be new and innovative or based on traditional knowledge and techniques. Ideally the solutions should originate from the communities themselves, although we will also consider top-down initiatives that work well for community members.

● We are interested in “frontline communities”, meaning any group – defined geographically, socio-economically, culturally or in any other way – that is particularly vulnerable to heat. For example, outdoor workers, the elderly or people living in crowded, low-income neighbourhoods. By “urban” we mean a city of any size, including built-up areas connected to larger cities. The Global South regions we’re particularly interested in are Latin America and South Asia. Locations can include those that have always been prone to extreme heat (such as Chennai in southern India) as well as those that have not historically had to deal with this problem, but are now facing increasing levels of heat (such as Buenos Aires in Argentina).

● What you’ll need to deliver:
○ A package of 30-40 images with caption information
○ An accompanying article of around 800 words
○ At least one social-first video (including the raw footage and a script to suggest how our in-house team should edit the final video). We are open to other suggestions for social-first content aimed primarily at Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok audiences. This could be a video, carousel, reel series or another format best suited to the story – we welcome inventive ideas.

● Compensation: USD 1,500 to cover all deliverables (inclusive of all taxes).

Please note:

● All story ideas and submitted content must be original, unpublished elsewhere and exclusive to us. As with all our content, your photo story will be published on our website under Creative Commons (for more information, see our republishing policy). The images will also be added to a heat archive on Flickr, released under the same licence. In addition, materials from your photo story will be used on social media, and content specifically designed for social media may also be used on the website.

● We will not accept any pitches, articles or other content that has been written, created or edited using artificial intelligence (AI). The only exception is for transcription and translation. If you use a translation tool to help you with your pitch, please state this in your submission.

Who can pitch

● You should belong to or have good personal or professional connections with a frontline community in an urban area in the Global South that struggles with dangerous levels of heat. You can pitch as an individual or as a team. We are particularly keen to hear from journalists with a strong social media presence and experience creating social-first content based on more in-depth reporting. We welcome pitches from traditional text-first journalists, photojournalists and social-first creator journalists. You do not need to demonstrate the ability to deliver all the required materials, but if you cannot, we will work with you to team you up with appropriate collaborators.

● We welcome pitches from journalists with expertise in climate and the environment, as well as those with other specialisms such as health, culture or sport.

● We publish multilingually, but for smooth collaboration, we will prefer those submitting pitches to be able to communicate and write well in English. We will be able to support final content written in the following languages: Urdu, Hindi, Spanish, Portuguese, Bahasa Indonesia, Thai.

How to pitch

● Pitches should be written in English, 300-500 words in length, and submitted via this online form.

● In the form, we ask you to briefly tell us about: 

○ The solution you want to cover and how you want to tell the story.
○ The community you want to cover, its experience with dangerous levels of heat and your connection to it.
○ Your previous experience as a journalist. Links to your website or portfolio, examples of previous work that demonstrate your skills (whether as a writer, photographer or social media content creator), and your social media profiles.
○ Collaborators you plan to work with and how their skills compliment yours, plus links that demonstrate their skills.

● Pitch deadline: 31st July 2026