The World Vision International and AirtelTigo has donated a an amount of GHC 10,000 each to the Ghana Journalist Association (GJA) ahead of its annual GJA Awards.

Mr Dickens Thunde, National Director for the World Vision International (WVI) Ghana, a child advocacy organisation, said it was in the vein of journalists’ reportage of child abuse and child rights protection stories that World Vision decided to sponsor this year’s GJA awards.

“The WVI recognizes the media and media practitioners as major allies in their quest to ensure that children are protected from abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence.

“The world Vision serves as a relief, development and advocacy organisation dedicated to the well-being of children, it’s response to these issues has been to join forces with like-minded institutions to ignite movements to raise awareness and drive courageous and effective action,” he said.

Mr Dickens said together with the media, the WVI constituted a more formidable force and voice to see to it that child protection was strengthened and participation laws, policies and systems existed and were working efficiently.

“We are committed to strengthen prevention, response and restorative measures to address violence against boys and girls. As we do this together with the media, it is just appropriate that we recognize, train and award media practitioners who have elected to champion the cause of the well-being of children here in Ghana.

“It is in this connection that World Vision Ghana is partnering the Ghana Journalist Association to celebrate and motivate hard working journalists,” he added.

He further stated that the World Vision would conduct a three-day workshop for a maximum of 30 reporters on child protection in 2018.

He said the training was structured to ensure that reporters were equipped with an appreciable technical knowledge of child protection and participation concepts, issues and skills in the gathering of content to enable them to report on these issues from an informed position.

Mrs Hannah Agbozo, Chief Officer for Legal & External Affairs at AirtelTigo Ghana, also speaking at the event at the Press Centre in Accra, said, they were excited to extend their support to the 22nd GJA Awards for the past three years through their previous brand Tigo.

She stated that AirtelTigo was proud to announce their sponsorship for the organisation of the awards and the Best Telecommunications Reporter category award.

“As a respected telecom brand that is extending connectivity and providing innovative products and services, we know that technology is changing how we consume media and enabling greater access to information, therefore the role and contribution of journalists to the total development of Ghana cannot be underestimated,” she said.

“AirtelTigo is proud to have the opportunity to support the work of the media, as a telecom and digital services provider, we are committed to offering quality services both in voice and data and will continue to provide solutions that will help small scale enterprises [SMEs] to remain sustainable,” she added.

Mr Roland Affail Monney, President of the GJA, told the Ghana News Agency that, it had been good to have World Vision International and AirtelTigo as partners for years.

He said the partnership between the two parties had been strategic over the years and had once again proven so.

“The calendar in review has been dominated by campaigning and elections so it was important to have had the support and sponsorship of these two organisations which will go a long way of speeding things up for the organisers,” he said.

He said the best approach to keeping the media in doing their job at the level they were doing at the moment was to recognise them for their work and have them awarded.