Thursday, December 04, 2008 Baguio girl wins UN gold medal
IMELDA Visaya Abano, a correspondent for Business Mirror, bagged the gold medal and US$5,000 cash prize in the 13th United Nations Correspondent Association (UNCA) Awards for excellence in her reporting on humanitarian and development affairs sponsored by the UN Foundation.
UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon is set to present the winners at the UNCA Awards Dinner at the UN headquarters in New York on December 4 to be attended by ambassadors and other international dignitaries as well as prominent media personalities around the globe.
This year's entries came from across the globe. It is also the first time a Filipino journalist won this prestigious award.
The judges praised Abano for her "well-written, well-researched, and comprehensive report on an incomprehensible country, by someone from a country where misery is fairly ubiquitous but nowhere near as desperate."
In her article "Inside Haiti: Hunger and Hatred in an Unhealed Land" appeared in the June 19, 2008 issue of Business Mirror, Abano courageously reported on what is happening inside Haiti's devastating consequences of poverty and rising food prices, human rights conditions, political turmoil, and a declining economy and health system.
Abano said as a Filipino journalist on duty visiting Haiti, one of the world's poorest country, never before have she seen such deprivation and suffering. Under the Media21 Global Journalism Network Geneva Fellowship in June 2008, Abano visited Haiti while kidnappings especially of foreigners were common.
"I have seen how people suffer in the Philippines and in other countries. But deprivation and suffering of people in Haiti is unimaginable," she said.
"This award shows the international community can demonstrate a creed of fairness and humanitarianism. I wanted to pay tribute to the resilient people of Haiti. Haitians still believe that for this poor country, with the strategic help of the international community, there is a way out," Abano added.
Organized by the UNCA, the awards were presented in three categories.
Abano, also the 2002 Asian winner of the Global Awards on Environmental Reporting organized by Reuters and International Union for Conservation of Nature, shared the gold medal award for UN Foundation Humanitarian and Development Affairs Reporting with Juan Carlos Machorro of the Mi Ambiente from Mexico.
In the other two categories of the UNCA Gold Medal Awards, the Elizabeth Neuffer Memorial Prize for written media (including online media) went to joint winners John Heilprin of Associated Press from USA and Bill Varner of Bloomberg also from USA.
The Ricardo Ortega Memorial Prize for broadcast journalism was awarded to joint winners Jugoslav Cosic of 892 Radio from Serbia and Marie Lora of Agence France Press TV from Kenya.
UNCA will also present its annual Citizen of the World Awards, which honor previously unrecognized efforts on behalf of humanity.
The UN Correspondents Association (UNCA) was founded in 1948 as a press club at the United Nations. The UNCA Annual Awards were established in 1995, as a global competition.
