INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE KURDISTAN

At the IMCK offices three Kurdish journalists were awarded a prize for best stories on oil related issues. The Oil is Money Prize was the finale of the project IMCK did with Open Society Intitute to improve the knowledge of Kurdish journalists (and thus of Kurdish readers/viewers) on the subject. After the Oil workshop IMCK offered in March 2011, the participants were invited to keep posted on a special Facebook page, and to meet two times with trainer Ben Lando (of Iraqi Oil Report) and some experts. All participants were invited to send in stories for the Prize. The jury consisted of Asos Hardi (director of Awene Newspaper), Khaled Sulaiman (Editor in Chief of Haftana magazine), Ben Lando (Iraqi Oil Report) and Judit Neurink (director IMCK). They choose the three best stories out of a dozen that were sent in. The prize ceremony took place on July 31, 2011. The winner is Aran Sidia from Hawler Newspaper, with a story about the results of oil production for the environment. Se...

Kurdsat TV-maker Hemen Amin was presented with the first prize in the contest of the Swedish organisations Qandil and Global Reporting, on reporting on water usage and wastage. His news item on the way people in Kurdistan waste water was chosen as the winner of the contest. He will visit Sweden this year as part of his prize. The prize was the result of three workshops IMCK conducted with Global Reporting on the huge wastage of drinking water in Kurdistan. A jury consisting of Ari Harsin (former head of Awene Erbil office and former IMCK trainer), Sabah Abdulrahman (Unami) and IMCK director Judit Neurink choose the three best out of 26 items and stories. A second prize was for Ferman Abdurachman of Rozhnama newspaper, the third went to Asos Serawi of Awene newspaper.