One World Media Awards celebrates global reporting

Now in its 29th year of celebrating journalistic excellence in international media coverage of the developing world, One World Media has announced the winners of the annual One World Media Awards.

Hosted this year by Channel 4 News presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy, the prestigious One World Media Awards took place at BAFTA and saw some of the world’s finest journalists, reporters and filmmakers - past, present and future - gather to celebrate the industry’s achievements.

Focused on highlighting the vital role journalists and filmmakers have in increasing cultural understanding and supporting equality and justice worldwide, the One World Media Awards have set an industry gold standard for media professionals reporting in, on and from the developing world, throughout Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East, Russia and the post-Soviet states.

Clothilde Redfern, Director of One World Media said: “The Awards entries each year reflect the global media's coverage of developing countries. Many people think of the developing world only in terms of disasters, emergencies and, in the case of the past year, the ongoing refugee crisis. But the beauty of the Awards is that they highlight another side to developing countries around the world, with some amazing and inspiring stories which highlight our common humanity, breakdown prejudice and enable new voices to be heard."

Winner of International Journalist of the Year, Selam Gebrekidan, is an Ethiopia-born Reuters journalist based in New York, who delivered a searing trilogy documenting the journeys of three groups of migrants from Eritrea. The first, centred on 16-year-old Girmay Mehari, revealed how smugglers prey on refugees’ relatives worldwide to extract money for journeys that often end in death. The second story uncovered how Islamic State, battling for its survival in Libya, is profiting from the migrant flow to Europe by turning women migrants like 24-year-old Ruta Fisehaye into sex slaves. The third story took Gebrekidan to Libya, where she documented how a mother and 12-year-old daughter, after escaping captivity as Islamic State sex slaves, were imprisoned by local militia on the baseless charge of belonging to the extremist group themselves.

Getting these stories required more than reporting prowess; equally challenging was that Gebrekidan lived through some of these ordeals with her sources, in real time, at some of the most harrowing or moving moments of their lives.

http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/migration/#story/34

http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/migration/#story/57

http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/migration/#story/62

http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/migration/#story/63

The One World Media Awards have become synonymous with hope and aspirational stories from the developing world, and this year’s winner of the Women’s Rights in Africa Award, AWA: Zimbabwe’s Rap Queen, made by filmmaker Max Thurlow and published on VICE, is the heart-warming story of one woman’s struggle to break down the walls of prejudice in the male dominated music industry and make a career as a hip-hop star. Taking her name from her own maxim: African Women Arise, AWA has struggled against sexual blackmail and domestic violence, issues she brings to her music.

As AWA prepares to perform at Shoko, Zimbabwe’s major hip hop festival, in the capital Harare, the film reveals intimate glimpses of her life and the scenes of her performing reveals how talented an artist she really is. The film ends on a high with AWA dressed in her trademark traditional African clothing and asserting: ‘I feel like superman when he’s wearing his costume, he can save the world. Well this is my superwoman costume. I feel like a hero when I’m dressed like this. I feel like I can do anything.’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWtO296772o

In a world where freedom of speech is still not possible under certain regimes, the winner of the Special Award is a true testament to those committed to making their voices heard.

For the past 26 years, Eritrea has been a dictatorship in which there is no room for freely reported news. The government closed all privately-owned print media outlets during a crackdown on the opposition in 2001. To date, at least 11 journalists are detained without being charged, and the media are totally subject to the whim of President Issayas Afeworki.

And yet it was eight years ago that Biniam Simon realised his dream of an independent Eritrean radio station. A well-known journalist with the state-owned national broadcaster Eri TV who arrived in France in 2007 after an eventful flight into exile, Simon was driven by the desire to be able to provide fellow Eritreans with independently reported news.

Thanks to his perseverance, he succeeded in launching Radio Erena (which means “Our Eritrea”) on June 15 2009 in Paris, with the support of Reporters Without Borders. The radio station has grown over the years and now has more than 15 journalists working for it, in Paris and across the globe.

They produce cultural, social, political and entertainment programmes that enable Eritreans inside the country to hear ideas different from those imposed by their government. The radio broadcasts in Tigrinya and Arabic to Eritrea by satellite and short wave and is also available on the Internet and via a mobile phone app.

The Print Award was bagged by The Guardian's Journalist - Jessica Hatcher-Moore for her article: Murder in Burundi

In September 2014, men with machetes assassinated three elderly Italian nuns at their convent in Bujumbura. The triple murder, which for many came to mark the beginning of Burundi’s ongoing political crisis, incensed Burundians, who suspected the State of orchestrating the crime. In the following months, the population united -Tutsis and Hutus - behind their journalists and civil rights defenders in a way the country had never seen before.

As Burundi descended rapidly towards autocracy, its human-rights activists and journalists risked their lives to investigate and document State crimes in the hope that, one day, their evidence would be used in court. This article focuses on the work of one particular human rights defender, whose quest to solve the nun's murder set him on a near-fatal collision course with the country’s most powerful general.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/15/murder-nuns-burundi-man-who-knew-too-much

The entries and finalists for the fifteen categories this year show an outstanding commitment by journalists and media outlets alike to effectively create not just informative pieces, but to provide better insight and appreciation of cultural parameters from around the world. Entries covered current issues around the refugee crisis, corruption, and people smuggling, to some of the lesser-known stories that often remain unaddressed by international media.