UNICEF Bangladesh organised 15th edition of Meena Media Award honoring 45 media professionals for their outstanding works on children’s issues. The awards were designed to inspire better and objective reporting on child rights and other issues relevant to their wellbeing of children across the country. The event celebrated excellence in creative media and journalism in print, electronic, online and visual platfroms.
The awardees have been selected from 76 nominees in 14 categories with the number of total entries recorded by a group of disadvantaged children from a UNICEF- supported project. UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors- magician Jewel Aich, actor Arifa Zaman Moushumi, cricketer superstar Shakib Al Hassan, UNICEF Bangladesh Child Rights Advocate Band Group Warfaze Representative Sheikh Monirul Alam Tipu and Tomoo Hozumi, representative of UNICEF Bangladesh handed over the awards to the winners amid much fanfare program held at Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel in the capital on Sunday.
On the occasion, representative of UNICEF Bangladesh Tomoo Hozumi said, “Media plays a very critical role in development of any society. It highlights progress, but at the same time, points out remaining as well as newly emerging challenges. Terming the media as ‘eyes and ears of the society’ he added, “I hope the media professionals present here today and beyond will continue to play a pivotal role in regular, factful and analytical reporting of issues concerning children to galvanize the society towards actions to address them”.
A 12 members expert panel of judges comprising of leading creative writers, veteran media professionals both from print and broadcast media, photographers and academics assessed each entry through a strict marking process where the names of the participants were replaced by a specific code number to ensure non-biased judgement.
