Civil Society, Development & Aid, Economy & Trade, Gender, Headlines, Human Rights, Labour, Latin America & the Caribbean, Poverty & SDGs

MEDIA-LATIN AMERICA: Bringing Millennium Goals to Life

Diana Cariboni

MONTEVIDEO, Sep 28 2007 (IPS) - “Daniel San Juan Tolentino dug his own grave. A pile of earth fell on him and buried him.” So begins the article on child labourers in Mexico that won first prize in the “Latin America and the Millennium Development Goals” Journalism Awards, organised by IPS and UNDP.

Daniel, 12 years old, was told to dig a ditch to prevent heavy rains from flooding the crops in the field where he was working. But an avalanche of mud ended his short life.

His story was one of several told with clarity and compassion in the series “Niños Jornaleros” by a team led by reporter Marcela Turati, published in the Mexican newspaper Excélsior from Jun. 27 to 29, which won the competition organised by the Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

“This Latin American journalism competition, conceived to reward work that best portrays the region’s struggles to achieve the elusive and often distant Millennium Goals, has been like rubbing salt in a wound,” said Cuban author Leonardo Padura, one of the members of the jury.

A total of 466 articles were entered from 19 Latin American and Caribbean countries, written in Spanish, Portuguese or English and published in print media in the region between Oct. 1, 2006 and Jun. 30, 2007.

“This kind of journalism, often consigned to the sidelines and neglected for obvious reasons, has shown its credentials and demonstrated that in Latin America, hidden behind more sensational reporting, there is this other kind, with a vocation for participating and a sense of its own usefulness,” said Padura.

Six other articles by reporters from Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay and Honduras were singled out for praise by a panel made up of Padura, Mexican writer Carlos Monsiváis, the president of the Press Freedom Foundation of Colombia, María Teresa Ronderos, IPS director general Mario Lubetkin, and UNDP regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Rebeca Grynspan.

The second prize was awarded to “Faces da maternidade” by Bruna Cabral and Mona Lisa Dourado, published in the Jornal do Commercio in Recife, Brazil. “By telling the experiences of numerous women, these articles take a rich, and at the same time harsh look at motherhood in Brazil,” said the panel.

“None of the daily rituals carried out by 26-year-old biology student Flávia Santiago, who is seven months pregnant and anxiously awaiting the birth of her first child, was ever experienced by Nadja Batista Borges, 29, who dropped out of primary school in the third grade. She, too, is pregnant. But with her seventh child,” the reporters wrote.

“They probably love their babies equally. The difference lies in their addresses. Nadja lives in a ‘favela’ (shantytown) of Santo Amaro. Flávia lives with her husband in a comfortable apartment” in a well-off neighbourhood, their article said.

Ronderos said that the competition was “a wonderful opportunity to discover what is happening among us, how we Latin Americans see ourselves, how we are thinking about our serious social problems and how we are seeking solutions.”

Pollution and other environmental problems, violence against children and among young people, poverty, exploitation, and gender inequality were some of the aspects addressed by the journalists, all related to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which the governments of the world promised in 2000 to meet within 15 years.

An extensive feature, “Morir en la pobreza” published in the Mexican magazine Contralínea by Zósimo Camacho and his team, and “Mata Atlántica, a floresta esquecida” by Paulo Aurélio Martinelli and Raquel Lima for the Brazilian newspaper Correio Popular, shared third place.

Fourth place went to César Bianchi for “El pequeño Comcar”, published in the Uruguayan newspaper El País about a school for children “so badly behaved that they can’t attend a normal school.”

Writer Monsiváis said, “Reading these articles has been a fruitful and harrowing experience. The quality of the information and the authors’ critical gaze are truly exceptional.”

Acording to Lubetkin, they are “a vivid portrait of the dramas and hopes of our continent. Many of them successfully communicate the gravity of the problems and the urgency of finding solutions.”

“Tolupanes, paraíso de los abandonados” by César Rivera, published in the Honduran newspaper El Heraldo, and “Violencia extrema en las escuelas,” by Humberto Padgett for the Mexican weekly magazine Emeequis, shared fifth place.

UNDP regional director Grynspan said she was glad to share the moving experience of reading these articles about Latin American reality, and highlighted the importance of the awards to honour the efforts of journalists and media to bring that reality to public attention.

First, second and third prize winners will receive 5,000, 2,500 and 1,000 dollars, respectively. The awards ceremony will take place in Mexico City in October. IPS will publish a book containing the articles selected in first to fifth places.