Executive Director of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC), Dr Colin Young, will hand over trophies to winners of the climate change media awards in Antigua and Barbuda on Tuesday, August 15th.
The media awards gala will take place at Government House, under the distinguished patronage of His Excellency, Sir Rodney Williams, Governor General of Antigua and Barbuda, and Lady Williams.
The climate change-themed awards ceremony is the first of its kind for the CCCCC and was achieved through a collaborative effort with the Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU) which has a long-standing Caribbean media awards initiative spanning three (3) decades.
A unique pan-Caribbean membership organisation of public service and commercial broadcasters in the Caribbean, the CBU and its affiliate, the CMC, collectively reach an audience of 4.8 million people in the Caribbean and millions of others extra-regionally.
Following the joint launch of the climate change-themed awards on February 1, 2023, for material published in 2022, the number of entries received in eight (8) of the 14 eligible categories totalled fifty-seven (57).
The categories were open to eligible media operating in Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cuba, the Commonwealth of Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. The highest number of entries were received in the category of news items, with seventeen (17) entries, and the media genre having the most submissions was television with thirty-four (34) entries in four (4) categories.
Speaking ahead of the Awards Ceremony, Ms Tecla Fontenard, Communications Specialist, who leads the initiative on behalf of the CCCCC emphasized the important role
Caribbean media plays in driving the climate change agenda and contributing to building public awareness of its impacts and opportunities. She noted: “Awareness studies recently conducted under the EU-GCCA+ Project (2021) show that mainstream media, particularly television and radio, are still popular sources of climate change information for Caribbean populations and preferred sources for most demographics. We will be honoured to celebrate with the Caribbean journalists, reporters, and digital content creators who have outrivaled their competitors and emerged winners in our esteemed first-time contest.”
The climate change media awards programme is financially supported by the European Union under the EU-GCCA+ Programme, “Enhancing Climate Resilience in CARIFORUM Countries.