London – On 20th November the winners of the prestigious Guardian International Development Journalism Competition were announced at an awards ceremony at the Royal Society for the Arts attended by DFID’s new Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State Mike Foster MP.
The Guardian, in Partnership with Marie Stopes International and with support from DFID and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), launched the competition earlier this year to help highlight the UN’s eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGS).
As well as Marie Stopes International there were seven other non government organisations involved in the initiative: Camfed International, International HIV/Aids Alliance, HelpAge International, Plan UK, the Malaria Consortium, Sightsavers International and WaterAid.
The competition, which had amateur and professional journalism categories, attracted more than 20,000 hits on the dedicated microsite and over 400 entries from journalists and aspiring writers.
Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State for Internatiional Development said:
"I was delighted by the high calibre of the entries and congratulate both overall winners on their outstanding contributions. Informed and balanced journalism plays a crucial role in raising the profile of international development. I am sure this competition has inspired the entrants and other UK journalists to write more about the issues surrounding global poverty. "
The 400 entries were then whittled down to the 16 finalists, each of whom then went on assignment to a developing country to write about their MDG-related topic. Marie Stopes International’s two finalists were aspiring writer, Sophie Elmhirst who went to Bangladesh and professional journalist Jenny Holden who visited MSI programmes in Ghana and Ethiopia.
The standard of writing produced by all 16 finalists was extremely high and the judges had a tough choice to make. However, Sylvia Rowley emerged as the winner of the amateur category for her article on how community-based organisations are helping to promote safer sex in India whilst in the professional category, Ben Willis won with his article on climate change and the Philippines.
Speaking at the awards ceremony, Michael Holscher, Director of External Relations at MSI said:
“The response to this unique journalist competition far exceeded our expectations when we conceived the competition many months ago. On behalf of all our NGO partners, we congratulate the winners for inspiring both readers and writers alike to seek out more in-depth understanding of development issues that might otherwise be forgotten.”
To find out more about the competition, read Ben’s and Sylvia’s winning articles and those of the other 14 finalists go to:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/journalismcompetition To read more about DFID's involvement with the competition go to: DFID