ALPHA MEDIA Holdings (AMH)’s Bulawayo bureau chief Silas Nkala last week scooped the first prize award at the International Labour Organisation (ILO)'s Southern Africa Migration Management (SAMM) Project Media awards held in Cape Town in South Africa.
The award ceremony coincided with the ILO and partners' launch of the hybrid media toolkit Reporting on Labour Migration in the Southern African Development Community.
The story that won him the award was titled Zimbabwean migrants making it big in South Africa.
Nkala was presented with a certificate and a cash prize by SAMM chief technical adviser Gloria Moreno-Fontes.
The second prize went to Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation reporter Joseph Phiri while Zimbabwe’s Theseus Shambare scooped the third prize.
In his award acceptance speech, Nkala said he felt honoured to be part of the awards ceremony.
“Firstly, I want to congratulate the ILO SAMM project for launching these awards and the toolkit that seeks to assist journalists on how to report issues of labour migration. I am very much excited to have been chosen as the top winner in these awards,” Nkala said.
"This story took me a lot of time, resources and effort to complete. In most cases good stories are hard to get and take a lot of time and resources.
- AMH journalist shines at ILO SAMM awards
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“However, despite the resource challenges that we have back home in Zimbabwe, I am grateful that I managed to write a story that is rated the best not only in Zimbabwe but within the Sadc region on issues of labour migration.”
AMH owns titles such as NewsDay, Zimbabwe Independent, Southern Eye and The Standard newspapers.
The multimedia company also runs online television and radio stations, HStv.
Speaking ahead of the awards presentation, ILO communications officer Makunga Baloyi said migrant workers were major contributors to social and economic development and were vital to the Sadc region’s vision of prosperity.
She said it was necessary to tackle the challenges they faced in exercising their rights to social security.
Baloyi said the objective of the competition was to contribute to combating hate speech, discrimination and xenophobia against migrant workers and to support change in the negative perceptions and attitudes towards them and their families through evidence or fact-based journalism and broadcasting that contributed to eliminating public misconceptions.
