DFID youth jury at One World Media Awards

07 July 2009

DFID’s first youth jury shine at the prestigious One World Media Awards ceremony

On Monday 22 June, amongst celebrities including environmental activist Trudy Styler and broadcaster Fergal Keane, four young people from all over the UK presented an award that they had judged for the One World Media Awards.

The awards celebrate excellence in media coverage of developing countries and development issues, and help persuade the media industry that these programmes can be both very high quality and attractive to UK audiences Most people in the UK get most of their knowledge about the developing world from TV, so it is important that UK audiences have access to a variety of programmes about the developing world.

This is the first time in the history of the awards that a group of young people have decided on an award. The category they judged was the Children’s Rights Award, and they decided that Dispatches: Saving Africa's Witch Children would take the prize. Their participation was funded by DFID which wants more and better media coverage of development issues.

The film highlights the plight of children in some of the poorest parts of Nigeria, where many thousands of children are being branded witches and blamed and punished for catastrophes, death and famine. 

The four young people were selected through a national competition where young people from the UK were asked to write about how media could contribute to children's rights around the world. They were then selected by a panel comprising staff from the One World Broadcasting Trust, Unicef and the Development Education Authority.

Before the judging took place they spent 2 days in London, and watched ITN news at noon being broadcast, met TV presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy, and chatted to a couple of last year's One World Media Awards winners.

DFID also funded the award for Local Media. This was won by Neville Hughes and Arwyn Evans for their sensitive film about a Welsh aid worker who has spent 25 years in Kenya and who is moving back to Wales with his Kenyan wife and two teenage children.