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Joseph Wemakor wins media competition on migration reporting

The Executive Director of Human Rights Reporters Ghana(HRRG), Joseph Kobla Wemakor has been adjudged winner of the media competition on migration reporting awards for 2018 at an event held on Wednesday May 8, at the Ministry of Information Conference room in Accra.

Wemakor and nine other journalists/reporters from various media outlets in the country are being honoured for excellent reporting on issues of migration and free movement of persons.The honorees who are equally members of the Migration Media Network(MMN) include GTV’s Akua Oforiwa Darko, Peter Quaye Adator of TV3, Zadok Kwame Gyesi of the Daily Guide Newspaper, Priscilla Sedinam Djentuh of Ghana News Network(GNN) and Julius K. Satsi of the Ghana News Agency(GNA). The rest are Jemila Akweley Okertchiri of Daily Guide Newspaper, Francis Bucknor-Baffoe of GBC and Nicholas Fianklu of GN TV.

“You and I have a responsibility to tell the true story on both sides, stories about the risks and unintended consequences that goes with irregular migration. Stories about opportunities we create here for people to participate in so they can desist from irregular migration”, Hon. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said, while advising the awardees to do more.

The competition, organised by Media Response, an NGO, with support from FMM West Africa among other donor partners seeks to reward hardworking reporters or journalists who sheds light on issues of migration and free movement of persons.

Joseph Wemakor, a prolific writer of no mean repute, a blogger and the Editor-In-Chief of Ghananewsone.com picked up the prestigious awards by entering the competition with two of his compelling feature stories which sheds light on dangers of irregular migration among others: “Death on the Sahara Desert: A touching story of a Ghanaian migrant and the “Rural-Urban migration in Ghana: A mixture of virtues and faults”.

Being a seasoned journalist with a decade of experience in news gathering, editing and reporting, Joseph has been recognized on many occasions both locally and internationally while championing the issues of human rights with much attention on migration and free movement of persons and protecting the rights of vulnerable children, young girls and women.

The media contest received entries from twenty (20) journalists across the country after it was opened on Friday July 27, and closes on September 13, 2018.

The winners of the competition were adjudged by a team of experts from the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), Ghana News Agency(GNA), the Ghana Institute of Journalism(GIJ), the Information Service Department(ISD) and the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association(GIBA).

The winners were presented with various awards and also had their winning stories published in a handbook on investigative journalism and migration for media practitioners in West Africa.

The awards event which coincided with the launch of Mobile App and Database of Migration Stories constitutes the final activity of the project ‘Media Training and Public Sensitization on ECOWAS and Migrants’ Rights’ which was jointly funded by the European Union and ECOWAS Commission within the framework of the project ‘Support to Free Movement of Persons and Migration in West Africa”.