Malawi: Airtel presents MAMAs Media Awards

Airtel Malawi director of marketing Enwell Kadango said they decided to introduce the MAMAs Media Awards because the media has highlighted the event locally without witnessing it.

"As a token of appreciation we want one of the media personnel to actually travel to Nigeria and witness and write about the event," he said.

Supporting media in Malawi

In his complimentary remarks for the gesture, one of the governors for MISA-Malawi Wisdom Chimgwede declared that this is yet another symbol of Airtel's commitment to supporting the media in Malawi.

"Apart from that, these awards will also see journalists going away with gadgets that are very pertinent or important in the life of every renowned scribe; I am talking about gadgets such as a laptop and indeed BlackBerry smartphone," he said.

At the ceremony, Rex Savala was also declared the MAMAs Trivia Winner after successfully participating in answering questions related to the MAMAs event. The media award was clinched by arts and features editor for Blantyre Newspapers, Clifton Kawanga.

Savala will fly to Lagos in Nigeria with his wife Laura. Kadango said Savala will also get US$1000 - an equivalent of 150,000 kwacha. Kawanga will also travel to Nigeria.

Runners-up in the awards

Freelancer Chauncy Namadzunda clinched the fourth spot and went away with airtime worth US$60, third position went to MIJ FM journalist Sylvester Namiwa who won a Blackberry Storm, while 101 Power FM journalist Nathan Majawa went away with a mini-laptop computer for winning the second spot.

Former executive director for the Media Council of Malawi, Baldwin Chiyamwaka, who was the chairperson for panel of judges, said among others they looked at prominence and placement of winning articles.

"We looked at frequency, in this case we mean the number of times Airtel was mentioned in an article, besides looking at relevance and duration," said Chiyamwaka.