AUCKLAND (Pacific Media Watch): Papua New Guinean journalist and researcher Henry Yamo has won the Spasifik Prize and PMC Storyboard Award for best diversity journalism by a graduating student at AUT University's School of Communication Studies awards in Auckland tonight.
"My achievements shouldn't be the last for Papua New Guinean students, should they be given the opportunity to study at the school in the years ahead," Yamo said from Port Moresby in a message read by fellow student Jonah Tisam, who received the prizes on his behalf.
The founder and editor of Spasifik magazine, Innes Logan, said many previous award winners had gone on to work at the magazine and Spasifik was proud to sponsor an award that had been given to a very diverse group of journalists from across the Pacific region over the years.
The Storyboard Award, featuring a traditional Sepik storyboard from PNG, was donated by PMC director Professor David Robie in 2006.
Yamo, who is now based in Papua New Guinea where he works as a researcher, completed a masters degree in Communication Studies last year, focusing on Mobile phones in rural Papua New Guinea: A transformation in health communication and delivery services.
He spent nine years as a primary school teacher in the Southern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. The time he spent teaching in the rural pockets of his country exposed him to the hassles and inconveniences that local people put up with on a daily basis due to a lack of basic infrastructure and services.
He decided to retrain as a journalist – a career which would enable him to tackle some of the immediate problems facing the country.
Yamo has also previously won the Bronze Medal and EMTV awards in recognition for academic excellence in the Divine World University degree programme where he completed his undergraduate journalism degree.
When he was based at the Pacific Media Centre in 2012 and 2013, Yamo wrote many articles for Pacific Scoop and PMC Online about human rights abuses in West Papua and corruption in PNG.
The Radio New Zealand International award for Asia-Pacific Journalism was won by Michael Sergel.
Sergel completed the Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies at AUT last year, and has written for Pacific Scoop, Pacific Media Watch and Te Waha Nui on topics including climate change and media advocacy.
Sergel was also one of only two journalists who covered the Pacific Parliamentary and Political Leaders Forum in Wellington last year, setting up his own live blog to report on the proceedings.
Now working as an education reporter in radio, Sergel said after winning his award that he was particularly honoured to receive an award sponsored by RNZI because of its proud tradition of covering Pacific issues.
RNZI stood out with its consistent coverage of the biggest conflict in the region in West Papua, said Sergel.
Tao Lin won the award for the outstanding graduate in the Post Graduate Diploma in Communication Studies - Journalism.
Lin is currently working as education reporter for the Manukau Courier newspaper.
The top Bachelor of Communications Studies journalist major was Poppy Wortman.
Alistar Kata, now at the Danish School of Media and Journalism, won the John Foy Memorial Award for excellence in broadcast journalism. Her sister attended to receive the award on Star's behalf.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
Anna Majavu
