By Natalie Apcar, Advocacy & Communications Manager
A story that began on the road with the Family Planning News Network (FPNN) in Colombia has earned regional recognition for excellence in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) journalism.
Colombian journalist and FPNN Community Reporter Luisa Fernanda Orozco Valencia has won the Journalistic Reporting category of the inaugural Words for Rights competition, led by the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean (IPPF ACRO). Her winning story, “Giving Birth in the Jungle and the Desert: The Midwives Who Save Lives in Nariño and La Guajira,” was published in El Espectador following a reporting journey across Colombia organized by FPNN and the William H. Gates Sr. Institute for Population and Reproductive Health (WHGI).
The first Words for Rights competition received 67 entries from 16 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean. The competition recognizes journalists and communicators producing rigorous, evidence-based and rights-based reporting on sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Reporting from Colombia’s most remote communities
Luisa’s award-winning story takes readers to Indigenous communities in Nariño and La Guajira, where geography, infrastructure and other barriers can make accessing maternal health services extraordinarily difficult.
Her reporting explores the critical role of Indigenous midwives and community health networks working to make pregnancy and childbirth safer while bridging ancestral knowledge and Western medicine. In Nariño, Luisa reports on the Awá people and a network of community members helping pregnant women navigate care in remote areas where reaching health facilities can require long journeys. In La Guajira, she documents how Wayuu midwives and health providers are working together to improve maternal care while respecting Indigenous knowledge and practices.
The story also looks beyond individual solutions to the conditions that make them necessary, including geographic isolation, gaps in health infrastructure and the challenges of delivering culturally responsive care in communities that have historically faced barriers to formal health systems.
During the reporting trip, I had the opportunity to speak directly with members of the communities I was reporting on and hear their stories and experiences firsthand. It is a privilege, and a rare one, to have people who are doing difficult work within their communities open up to the press and trust a journalist with the details of their lives and experiences. I felt deeply humbled by the confidence they placed in me and by the trust they gave me as a reporter
Preparing journalists for a historic ICFP
The reporting journey took place in August 2025 as WHGI prepared to host the International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) in Colombia later that year, together with local co-hosts including Profamilia, Fundacion Valle del Lili, and the Government of Colombia. ICFP 2025 marked the first time the global conference was held in Latin America, creating an important opportunity to elevate the region’s voices, experiences and leadership within global conversations about family planning and SRHR.
In preparation, FPNN brought together journalists from across Latin America for a 10-day reporting journey through Colombia. Through solutions journalism training, field reporting and direct engagement with communities and experts, reporters had an opportunity to explore the people and issues shaping SRHR across the host country before thousands of researchers, advocates, policymakers, health professionals and journalists arrived for ICFP.
The journey was also designed to build reporting capacity that would extend into the conference itself. When ICFP convened in Bogotá in November 2025, Luisa remained an active member of the FPNN reporting community, covering stories and perspectives emerging from the conference. Check out a recap of ICFP 2025 media coverage here.
Together, the reporting journey and ICFP created something increasingly difficult to find in global health journalism: sustained opportunities for journalists to develop subject-matter knowledge, build trusted connections with sources and communities, and follow stories over time.
ICFP [and WHGI] gave me the opportunity to engage with experts doing important work across the SRHR field, addressing issues such as pronatalism, population growth, adolescent pregnancy, women’s health and rights, HIV, and many others. It was also a valuable opportunity to build connections and exchange experiences with people working in different contexts. Those conversations reminded me that we are not alone in this field, and that there is a global community of people deeply committed to protecting public health and advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights around the world.
Investing in the journalists telling SRHR stories
For FPNN and WHGI, that investment in journalists is central to strengthening the broader SRHR information ecosystem. Journalists bring health research, policy and programs into public conversation, but producing nuanced global health reporting requires more than a compelling topic. It requires time, access, trusted connections and opportunities to see health challenges and solutions firsthand.
Luisa’s recognition offers one example of what can grow from creating those opportunities.
The Words for Rights jury recognized Luisa and the other winners for journalism that puts people and their rights at the center of stories while expanding access to reliable, evidence-based and stigma-free information.
From reporting alongside communities across Colombia, to covering the first ICFP held in Latin America, to bringing those stories to a national audience through El Espectador, Luisa’s work demonstrates the value of investing in journalists who can carry complex SRHR stories beyond conferences and technical spaces and into public conversation.
(Left) Group photo of all the FPNN community reporters and organizers. (Right) Community reporters conducting interviews.
