I am proud to share that we conducted our Award Ceremony via video conference to celebrate the Winners of Africa and Latin America “Stay at Home” Media Recognition Awards and welcome them to Merck Foundation Alumni.
Big congratulations to all the winners. I am very proud of all of you, you are Merck Foundation Best African and Latin American journalists who covered coronavirus pandemic.
More than 80 Journalists from Africa have emerged as the winners from 28 Countries such as Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
More than 14 Journalists from Latin America have emerged as the winners from 4 Countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Colombia.
In addition to felicitating the winners, the video conference enabled us to exchange ideas and views in a pan African and Latin American forum respectively; stimulating respectful dialog on the critical role media plays to sensitize communities about health and sensitive issue such as breaking infertility stigma and empowering girls through education.
Merck Foundation also rewarded all the winners by providing them with one-year access to an online educational training program called “MasterClass”. Through this, we would like to advance media capacity to improve their standard of reporting and advocating for Health, Social and Economic issues in their countries.
We welcome the winners as Merck Foundation Alumni, and hope that they will be working together to create a culture shift as a part of ‘Merck More than a Mother’ and ‘Educating Linda’ programs.
Stay tuned as we plan to announce our next Merck Foundation Media Recognition Awards soon.
Kind regards,
Dr. Rasha Kelej,
CEO of Merck Foundation
President of Merck More Than A Mother
One of the 100 Most Influential Africans (2019, 2020)