Date: 14 June 2017
Country: Malta
A Dune Voices journalist from Libya, Bennour Hussein, won a Migration Media Award, a newly established journalism competition funded by the European Union. Bennour Hussein who was trained by the Media Diversity Institute (MDI) within the project Dune Voices, was awarded for a story about migrants and refugees in a camp in the Libyan town Gharyan. Other winners include journalists from 16 countries featuring fact-based and impartial reporting on the complexity of the issue of migration, its many challenges and opportunities.
“High quality reporting as rewarded by the new journalistic competition is urgently needed to improve people’s understanding of migration,” say the organisers of the Migrant Media Award ceremony held in Malta on 14 June 2017.
“I am extremely happy for winning this award and I am grateful to the MDI and my Dune Voices editors. But in the same time, I am disappointed for not being able to report under my real name,” says Hussein. He, due to complex circumstances set up illegal groups in control of human trafficking in Libya, has to write under pseudonym.
Hussein’s award represents an official recognition of the work done by MDI and its multimedia platform Dune Voices that specialises in providing reliable, in depth, well investigated feature stories covering topics such as migration, conflict, security, women, youth, ethnic and religious minorities, giving a voice to marginalised groups and ordinary people inhabiting the Sahara region.
Set up by MDI in 2014, Dune Voices report in Arabic and French, while the best articles are translated into English. Diverse in its content and structure, this multimedia platform brings important stories from the heart of the Sahara via its own network of reporters in Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco and Algeria. The Dune Voices team trained over 70 journalists and citizen journalists in those countries. Bennour Hussein who won the Migration Media Award, was amongst the MDI trainees.
An international jury, composed of reputable senior journalists, evaluated over 120 applications for the first edition of the Impressed with the quality of the previously published pieces and the proposals for future productions which this award scheme will fund, jury member Aidan White from the Ethical Journalism Network said: “This kind of reporting does great credit to the cause of public-interest journalism. It shines a powerful light on the humanitarian and policy challenges of the recent ‘migration crisis’. The authors raise questions that cannot be ignored and challenge those who come up with easy answers.”
The Migration Media Award is a new EU-funded journalism competition bringing together four partners based on the initiative of the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD). The EUROMED Migration IV and OPEN Media Hub projects, funded by the EU, developed the scheme in partnership with the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) and Malta’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade Promotion.
