ABUJA (SundiataPost) – Coming less than a week after it launched Dealboku (https://dealboku.com), its e-commerce platform, Sundiata Post (https://sundiatapost.com) has won a grant from the Journalism Emergency Relief Fund set up by US technology giant, Google to help news organisations in developing countries increase their capacity for coverage in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In an email conveying the news to Max Amuchie, Founder/CEO of Sundiata Post Media Ltd, the Google News Initiative Team said it “received over 12,000 applications from more than 100 eligible countries and we are happy to confirm that your application has been approved to receive USD $5,000 from the JERF, in this wave of announcements.”
Google described the response to the programme as “truly overwhelming,” adding that it was “humbling and gratifying to help support local news organisations”.
Amuchie, in his reply, thanked the Google News Initiative Team for for the gesture and promised that the fund would be used judiciously.
In order to address the challenges posed to news organisations by the coronavirus pandemic Google had requested applications for its Google News Initiative’s Journalism Emergency Relief Fund (JERF) in April at https://newsinitiative.withgoogle.com/journalism-emergency-relief-fund with a view to assisting newsrooms across the world.
Sundiata Post was officially unveiled at an impressive ceremony in Abuja on 7 July 2015 and in August 2019 it joined the league of Nigeria’s most trafficked news sites when it’s Google verified monthly visitors reached 1.2 million.
It is a non-partisan news platform that, in the words of Amuchie, it’s founder, “reports Nigeria, Africa and the world, in that order, through balanced news coverage and informed commentary”.
On Thursday, 9 July 2020, Sundiata Post became the first news organisation in Nigeria to launch an e-commerce subsidiary when Dealboku, a deals marketplace, opened for business.
