News

Voices of Africa Media Foundation receives BoB Award for Best Videoblog

Haarlem (4th of June 2009)
Voices of Africa Media Foundation has won a BoB Award in the category Best Videoblog for www.voicesofafrica.com, the foundation’s website that is used as an interactive platform for video reports posted by trainees and alumni of our mobile reporting training.

The award was granted by an international jury of Deutsche Welle's BOBs - Best of the Blogs – competition 2008. De BOBs, world’s largest international weblog competition, is organised by Deutsche Welle and German International Broadcasting Service.

The team of representatives of Voices of Africa, consisting of both African reporters and the programme management team,  received the award during the award ceremony at the second Global Media Forum (3-5 June 2009), in Bonn, Germany. The award is a reward for all mobile reporters, alumni, volunteers and sponsors who have contributed to this innovative project.

The theme of this year’s forum was “Conflict prevention in the Multimedia Age’. Voices of Africa had a chance to show media experts from all over the globe, the value of mobile reporting during the well attended workshop “Mobile Phone as a Conflict Prevention Tool”. Our reporters explained the audience how they are able to report about threatening developments that can possibly lead to violence. Late 2007 Kenyan Voices of Africa reporters signalled tension in an early stage before the post election violence broke out.

Mobile reporters have advantages over traditional journalists, because the usage of phones does not intimidate interviewed people. In addition, Voices of Africa reporters are locals who are part of the community they report about. They are able to give a voice to their community.

For more information on the presence of Voices of Africa during the conference, visit:
GMF 2009 photos and GMF 2009 page.