Patricia Watson.SENIOR STAFF reporter assigned to The Sunday Gleaner, Patricia Watson, was recently awarded the International Planned Parenthood Federation's Rosa Cisneros Memorial Information Award. Miss Watson received the award for the series "Breaking the Silence, Dispelling the Myths about HIV/AIDS" which appears in the Outlook Magazine.
Forty entries from the IPPF Western Hemisphere Region, which includes the USA, Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean were received. According to the IPPF, the committee which judged the entries "was extremely impressed with your in-depth coverage of issues related to HIV and your courage in addressing these issues in a culture that has treated HIV as taboo for too long.
"It is clear that your reports have opened up a lively public dialogue in Jamaica about HIV, and that they have also opened up opportunities for people living with HIV and the organisations that serve them."
Miss Watson is the first Jamaican and the first Caribbean journalist to receive the prestigious award. The award was presented to Miss Watson on September 14, 2002, at the IPPFs Awards Banquet in Miami, Florida.
At the same ceremony the Family Planning Association of Trinidad and Tobago (FPATT) received the Outstanding Adolescent Programme Award for revamping its strategy for reaching youth in order to make its services more youth-friendly. FPATT first conducted an operations research project to learn what providers, youth and the community thought about its youth services, and then used the research findings to overhaul its programme. With active input from youth, FPATT designed and opened a new youth centre in 2001; as a result, the numbers of young people accessing FPATT's services increased dramatically.
Miss Watson also received the 2001/2002 Jamaica Broilers Fair Play Certificate of Merit for placing second for her story: 'Breaking The Silence: Dispelling Myths About HIV/AIDS'.
The main purpose of the Fair Play awards is to encourage journalists to be thorough and balanced in investigating and reporting on important national issues.
The series 'Breaking The Silence, Dispelling the Myths about HIV/AIDS' began in December 2001. It came out of a recognition that HIV, although a fatal infection, was not being taken seriously by Jamaicans. In addition, persons living with HIV were treated as less-than-humans, either out of ignorance, fear or simply because people did not care.
The column has as its main objectives promoting safer sex and dispelling myths about HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections. It also seeks to encourage responsible behaviour and break away the stigma and discrimination associated with the disease.
