PIND was at the 32nd Diamond Awards for Media Excellence on Sunday, December 10, at the Oriental Hotel, Lagos, to present the PIND Prize for Niger Delta Development Reporting to three worthy journalists whose reports stood out in this special category: Yekeen Akinwale (Winner), Shola O’Neil (Runner up), and Soni Daniel (Runner up).
Akinwale, who is winning the top prize for the second time, wrote an insightful article on how a community in Edo State gained electricity for the first time thanks to PIND intervention. The report titled How Low Carbon Cost Effective Energy is Empowering Coastal Communities was published in The Cable Newspaper.
O’Neil’s feature, Flood: No Rainbow in the Sky, No Calm After the Storm, published in The Nation Newspaper, discussed the effects of flooding in the Niger Delta. And Soni Daniel, in Bodo/Bonny Road: Now, the People are Ready to Walk, Drive with Smile, published in Vanguard Newspaper, talked about the economic development and progress in two Niger Delta communities thanks to the timely construction of a road.
The PIND Prize for Niger Delta Development Reporting promotes and rewards solution journalism that highlights development in the Niger Delta. PIND is sponsoring this award on the DAME platform for the second year.
The award is part of PIND’s Media Solution Journalism Innovative Grants or PIND media grants, an initiative geared at promoting and rewarding solution and development reporting on issues within the Niger Delta. PIND is especially interested in journalistic reports highlighting proven development solutions that can help reduce regional poverty and conflict if replicated and scaled up.
PIND started this initiative in 2019 to share its successful development models, approaches, and lessons from working in the developmental sector in the Niger Delta region since 2010.
DAME is a non-profit organization that initiated the awards to stimulate and celebrate excellence, talent, and enterprise within the press.
PIND media grants reward media stories that highlight innovations promoting pro-poor development, advocacy, and awareness of significant issues limiting economic development and peacebuilding in the region.
