Manuela Huyghues Despointes is a Knight Development Journalism Fellow who will work with a leading news organization in Senegal’s capital city, Dakar, to improve and expand coverage of poverty-related issues and bring news of rural areas to the national agenda.

Manuela is a senior journalist with extensive experience as a training consultant in several African countries. Most recently, she completed a two-year assignment overseeing an ICFJ project that focused on elections coverage in Guinea.

She began her journalism career more than 15 years ago as a freelancer in France, where she covered social and international topics. She then spent four years working at a Paris radio station, specializing in covering conflict and overseeing reports on global humanitarian issues. In 2002, Manuela spent a year in Argentina as the correspondent for Figaro. Since that time, she has worked as head producer in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for Radio Okapi (Foundation Hirondelle/Monuc), as a trainer for NATO in Afghanistan, and as a photojournalist specializing in children’s issues for UNICEF in Burkina Faso.

Manuela has a Master’s degree in literature from the Sorbonne in Paris and attended the graduate school of journalism in Paris.