Magdalena Rojo
Loving journalism, travel, culture
I am a freelance journalist, originally from Slovakia. Having traveled and lived in almost 50 countries and being married to a Mexican photographer Noel Rojo, I like to see myself as a world citizen.
As such, I enjoy covering human rights and global issues directly from the field, mostly in developing countries.
Chances are you would meet me in remote areas of Ethiopia talking over coffee to women who were migrants in Saudi Arabia, or drinking tea with Tibetan monks who fled to India.
I am a co-founder of a long-term, global project Women Who Stay. Together with my husband, we have been collecting stories of women left behind after their male counterparts migrate.
I am a big fan of slow journalism and anthropology; I am always excited to spend days or weeks with people I write about in order to understand them and their environment and to gain their trust.
I have a deep interest in telling under-covered stories; I go to the places where other journalists do not go and search to challenge the general media narrative by asking questions to those who are rarely represented, such as vulnerable groups in societies, minorities, even women.
I have been published in the national media in Slovakia and the Czech Republic and recently, my work was also introduced into the international media, such as News Deeply, Deutsche Welle, The Progressive.
I was nominated for the Slovak Press Award with her reportage about Cuba in 2013.
Want to read me?
The women left to face climate change and overfishing alone
Senegalese coastal villages are affected by climate change and overfishing. While many men leave to seek employment abroad, women often stay behind and try to adapt to life between rising sea levels and desertification.
For Ethiopian Women, Work Abroad Is Opportunity and Risk of a Lifetime
Amid nascent efforts to introduce labor protections for migrant domestic workers in the Gulf, women who returned to Ethiopia describe why working in the Middle East entails both great dangers and opportunities and how the experience changed their lives in complex ways.
Women Who Stay
A global, long-term, slow journalism project. Together with my husband Noel Rojo, we give a voice to women who stay in their countries of origin while their family members migrate. We bring a complex view on migration, as women who stay also form an integral part of the migration process.
We stay in the field long enough to understand different cultures and contexts. We have been collecting stories of women on four different continents to find what connects us all when it comes to the migration issue.