MDDA-Sanlam Local Media Awards launched

Community broadcasters, local and community newspapers are invited to submit entries for the 2012 MDDA-Sanlam Local Media Awards. The MDDA-Sanlam Local Media Awards are entering their third year and are growing from strength to strength in celebration of excellence in the community and small commercial media sector.

These awards bring together the more than 22 years of SANLAM Community Newspaper Awards and four years of SABC News/MDDA Community Media Awards into one big event the MDDA-Sanlam Local Media Awards in the best interest of developing grassroots/local media talent, celebrating and promoting excellence.

The MDDA-Sanlam Local Media Awards 2012 includes the RANTHO/LETSEBE Community Media Achievement Award. This Award is dedicated to the many community media activists, heroes and heroines who passed away and is given in the name of the late Tshepo Rantho and the late Harry Letsebe. It is given to the best community media project in South Africa that ensures the noble principles of community ownership and control, community participation, relevant community content in the languages spoken in the community served and serving the needs of the particular community. This award was launched at the last ceremony and was awarded to Radio Riverside and presented by Deputy Minister Performance and Monitoring Honourable Obed Bapela and the Chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications Honourable Skhumbuzo Eric Kholwane.

The details of the 2012 awards are:

Closing date: 31st January 2013 (no late submissions will be considered)

Submission office: Nearest Sanlam Office

Entry validity : 01st January - 31st December 2012

Date of the Awards: Friday 24th May 2013

Venue: Johannesburg (venue to be confirmed closer to the time)

Says Sanlam's Head of Group Communications, Mr Ainsley Moos: "Sanlam supports local media because we believe local media play an important role in keeping communities informed. We believe that informed communities are better equipped to make important decisions about their lives. We hope that our support for the Awards promotes excellence in writing and broadcasting and contributes to relevant, credible and quality information."

For the 2011 Awards, some 509 community and small commercial newspapers, corporate owned local newspapers and community radio stations from across the country as well as one from Namibia participated. More than 900 individual entries in the typography, writing, photography and 79 entries for the radio categories (Best Community Radio Station, Broadcasting in Indigenous Languages, In-depth News Coverage and Current Affairs, and in Investigative Journalism) were judged.

Two hundred and ten photographs and over 80 radio programmes were also assessed individually. This makes the competition the largest of the many community/grassroots competitions held in South Africa annually.

Entry forms are available on www.mdda.org.za.

Issued by:
MDDA: 011 643 1125/078 800 8161
Sanlam Group Communications: 021 947 2512

For further information please contact:

Nkopane Maphiri, MDDA Program Director at 083 644 9342, www.mdda.org.za and
Pearl Majola, SANLAM at 083 286 7476 az.oc.malnas@alojam.lraep