This year’s Caribbean Media Awards will have a focus on climate change with entries now being open for submissions.

The Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC), and its funding partner the European Union, have joined forces with the Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU) to officially launch the call for media entries into this year’s Caribbean Media Awards.

This year’s edition will have 12 climate change categories, as the climate change-themed media awards will shine a bright light on the best climate change media content creations for 2022.  

The competition is open to all reporters/journalists/news camera crews, media production companies, and social media influencers, who are citizens of CARIFORUM Member States, which includes all CARICOM states plus Cuba and the Dominican Republic. More information on the awards will be unveiled in the next few weeks.

The CCCCC, which was officially opened in August 2005 coordinates the region’s response to climate change and is the key node for information on climate change issues and the region’s response to managing and adapting to climate change. 

CBU partnership

CCCCC executive director Dr Colin Young, speaking at Wednesday’s (February 1) launch in Barbados of the climate change-themed Caribbean Media Awards, indicated the centre is “excited about this partnership with the CBU and we are even more excited to see the climate change-related content that will be created from across the region.”

“The CCCCC stands ready to assist media personnel to better understand climate change and its complexities; our experts stand ready to assist you in any way possible to ensure that the media becomes a powerful champion in promoting climate change awareness across the region,” added Young.

He expressed the hope that through these media awards, the organisation can achieve the following outcomes:

• More evidence-based news reporting on climate change;
• Better engagement with the region’s journalists, reporters and other media operatives to ramp up sustained news coverage on climate change-related issue;
• Increased visibility for the 5Cs as the CARICOM-mandated institution to lead and coordinate the Caribbean’s response to climate change, while also showcasing our partner, European Union, who is making this initiative possible;
• Increase the awareness of our citizens to climate change and its effects to improve climate resilience across the Caribbean.

The CCCC held its first media sensitisation session on Thursday in Barbados. This will be the first in a series that will be held across more countries in CARIFORUM this year, as part of its commitment to building the capacity of journalists, reporters, and communications personnel working in climate-sensitive sectors.

The sensitisation session exposed media personnel to broad topics on climate change and will include varied types of instruction, fact-sharing, and practical exercises.  Recognising that reporting climate science concepts to non-science audiences with accuracy can be challenging, the programme featured both the global and local contexts to:

1. Equip participants with first-hand experiences, information, and tools to champion climate change stories and improve the frequency and accuracy of climate change reporting;
2. Amplify how human interest angles elaborate the emotional side to convey stronger stories;
3. Demonstrate how to break down scientific facts into practical climate solutions for varied audiences, and,
4. Provide examples of how climate-related stories can be framed to help guide local actions and improve public knowledge.