Best Reporter Gets DEVCOMS Award

Development Communications (DEVCOMS) network, winner ONE Africa Award 2008 and a pace setter in awareness on maternal and child health issues in Nigeria, is set to provide grants to best investigative reports on Maternal Newborn and Child Health (MNCH). The initiative is in collaboration with Well Being Foundation (WBF), who will give awards to the most outstanding sets of stories on MNCH.

The grants for journalists is a N75, 000 field trip funding for unreported or on-going investigative stories on MNCH in Nigeria. All entries sent in will be collated and duly screened, while the best ones are selected and then given the grants for the field trip. Also, past outstanding stories on MNCH could be submitted as entries for the award which will hold in Ilorin, Kwara State later in the year.

This project is part of DEVCOMS efforts at raising national consciousness and mobilising commitments for reducing the extremely high spate of maternal mortality in Nigeria. Akin Jimoh, Programme Director at DEVCOMS Network says ‘the grant is a way of encouraging journalists reporting health related issues, especially maternal and child mortality stories, to keep addressing themselves to the critical health challenges and concerns, as they use their reports to create more awareness and education.’

Speaking on the participation of The Well Being Foundation in the competition, Founder of the NGO, Her Excellency, Mrs Toyin Saraki, explains that ‘dissemination of empirical and factual information is paramount to the improvement of the health of women, newborns and children and that journalists needed to be encouraged in this bid.’

It is believed that the grant will help in curbing the alarming rate of maternal, newborn and child mortality in Nigeria as the nation matches forward to achieving the 2015 target of MDGs 4 and 5

The entry, which opened on the 31st of July, 2009 and was meant to close on the 14th of August, 2009, has been extended by one week. Hence its closing date is now 31st of August, 2009. For further details and the application form, please.