HIV positive Maire Bopp wins

Development

HIV positive Maire Bopp wins Pacific media Freedom Award

MAIRE Bopp, an HIV-positive

Tahitian journalist working for

Radio Tefana has won this year’s Pacific Media Freedom Award pre sented by the Pacific Islands News Asso ciation (PINA).

Bopp, 24, a former University of the South Pacific journalism student who earlier this year won the USP journalism programme Storyboard Award, was pre sented with her award at the closing din ner for the PINA convention in Suva last month.

She has spoken out widely in the news media on living with HIV/AIDS and the issues facing many young Pacific Islanders.

A new 40-minute documentary film about her life, Maire, directed by USP journalism lecturer Ingrid Leary and produced by the Secretariat for the Pacif ic Community and the University of the South Pacific premiered at a Suva cine ma last month.

A surprised and delighted Bopp said the recognition showed that the media was receptive to issues she had addressed.

“I am thankful to the media for giving me the support and legitimacy in what I have been doing to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS,” she said.

“I am proud that the media in the

Pacific has taken the initiative to show the rest of the world that they are not only there to make head lines but it is also respon sible for

making peo

ple under stand them selves and

the prob

lems they face.”

Fiji’s

Daily Post

was given a

Special

Commenda tion for Best Newspaper

in the Pacific at the awards.

PINA life member and Radio Tonga Managing Director Tavake Fusimalohi said the judges believed the newspaper deserved special recognition for its efforts in promoting the free flow of expression and better journalism in

spite of being constrained by limited resources.

The Fiji government took a con trolling 44 per cent interest in the Daily Post in February this year but it has remained editorially independent and out spoken. PNS ■