The 23 year-old Malawian Faith Kamtambe, a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism student with the Polytechnic, a constituent of University of Malawi (Unima) beat all odds by immerging as the overall winner of Future News Competition which the British Council organized.
The development saw Faith representing Malawi at the Future News Conference which was held on September 4-6, 2015 at Scottish parliament in Edinburgh, Scotland aimed at supporting upcoming scribers with journalistic writing skills.
The conference drew 100 participants from all over the world which provided a unique opportunity for the aspiring journalists to engage United Kingdom (UK)’s leading media professionals and institutions including BBC, Aljazeera, CNN and Reuters.
The Maravi Post caught up with Faith on Friday, September 18 upon arrival from the conference on her secret behind the award and what laid ahead based on such an international exposure.
“Putting God first in everything including dedication, hardworking spirit, and passion and setting up goals contributed for scooping the award. On top of that never give up when one wants to excel in life no matter obstacles might be on the way.
“Attending such a global forum was milestone for my life in general such that with journalistic skills exposed to through the conference; passion in Journalism won’t be the same as we were trained comprehensively by the likes of Laura Goodwin of STV, Paul Ingrassia of Reuters and Geoff Webster of the BBC.
“Actually I have brought home a documentary which I shot at the conference that includes footage of the lectures and training we had in Broadcast Journalism, media landscape, economics, news in the digital age, news reporting danger, digital storytelling, editorial
dilemmas, business and sports news among others”, explained Faith who has a blog www.faithkamtambe.simplesite.com
The 23 year old upcoming scriber who hails from Dedza and currently residing in the capital Lilongwe wants to be part of the success story of changing the public mentality on how they view the local media as
many trust more information shared by the international media houses than local ones.
“I have documentary based on the conference’s outcomes which will be shared to fellow aspiring journalists and undergraduates students pursuing journalism in Malawi in various colleges including Malawi Institute of Journalism (MIJ), The Malawi Polytechnic, Blantyre International University (BIU and Exploits University among others.
“For the upcoming female journalists to excel in this noble profession is to have passion and keep on practicing while in school through citizen journalism whereby one corresponds to various media houses of interest whether electronic, print or online publications.
“Actually I want to be part of successful individuals who are to change the entire journalism professional in Malawi on how the general public view it especially trusting more information delivered from international media houses on our issues than the local ones”, says
