The World Media Festival Gold Award recognizes true excellence in modern media communication. Judged by industry experts, the 2014 awards saw 700 entries critiqued for writing, sound, editing, creativity, visuals, insights, and above all the extent to which the programme meets its stated goals and communicates with its intended audience.
This is the second time that Shuga (filmed in Lagos, Nigeria) has won the award; after series 1 of Shuga achieved success in 2011, winning Gold in the Public Relations Health Award category.
Highlighting the valuable role that edutainment and multimedia communications can play in the battle to reduce the number of HIV infections among Nigerian youth, Shuga is part of a far-reaching multimedia campaign that fuses sexual health messaging with gripping storylines to raise awareness among young people about HIV prevention and reproductive health in Nigeria.
The series also touches on other public health issues affecting young people including: living with HIV; disclosing your status; getting tested; condom use; gender based violence; gender equality; women's empowerment; family planning; pregnancy; transactional sex; multiple concurrent partners; stigma and discrimination of people living with HIV; and parent/child communication.
The third series of Shuga, filmed in Lagos with a largely Nigerian cast and director (Biyi Bandele), has been watched by its largest audience ever: the series has aired to in excess of 550 million households around the world via a total of 68 TV broadcasters and 12 online/view on demand platforms across Africa, Europe, UK, Asia and the Caribbean. In Nigeria alone the series has been seen on MTV Base (DStv Channel 322), as well as STV, AIT, NTA and Ebony Life TV.
