Award for Shujaaz - a comic with serious messages
At a ceremony in London last night Shujaaz - a multimedia project partly funded by DFID - was announced as this year鈥檚 recipient of the One World Media Special Award.
皇冠体育app One World Media Awards recognise excellence in the UK media鈥檚 coverage of the developing world. 皇冠体育app Special award is presented for an outstanding project working on the ground in the developing world, where media activity has made a real impact on people鈥檚 lives.
Shujaaz is an innovative multimedia youth communication initiative which combines 600,000 monthly free comics, daily broadcasts on 22 syndicated radio stations and social media to engage with young people in Kenya.
It features a huge range of issues which are designed to help young people improve their lives. Some of these have been ideas for making money out of agricultural innovation - funded by DFID through . Other stories have looked at tackling tribalism and the aftermath of the post-election violence, governance, micro enterprise and broader human rights. Support for the project draws together both private sector and international development funding.
International Development Minister聽Alan Duncan attended the awards ceremony last night. He said:
鈥淪hujaaz is an incredibly effective way of communicating information to young Kenyans and their families, including poor farmers often in remote areas. It has provided vital guidance on farming techniques that can directly improve people鈥檚 lives, with stories ranging from ways of preventing livestock disease through to how to improve crop yield. I鈥檓 delighted that it has won.鈥�
Rob Burnet, the social entrepreneur behind Shujaaz, said:
鈥淪hujaaz features four young Kenyans whose stories evolve each month as they engage with a range of social issues and ideas to help them get on in the world. We deliberately merge facts and fiction so that we can cover hard hitting material using advocates that our young audience have grown to trust and respect. Our regular readership is now around 6 million and judging by the text and Facebook messages we get each day we are making a real difference.
鈥淲inning the One World Media Award is fantastic validation of the impact Shujaaz is having on the lives of millions of young Kenyans. It has been a huge amount of work to create East Africa鈥檚 largest circulation publication in just over 12 months鈥ut it has been worth it.鈥�
皇冠体育app will be broadcast on the BBC World News channel on Saturday 14 May.