Snodgrass, left, with Trust ambassador Cat Deeley
Coventry Evening Telegraph reporter Emma Snodgrass has won a national award at The Prince’s Trust 2003 Local Reporting Awards.
Snodgrass earned the professional category award for an article she wrote about the Jigsaw youth group. It was founded and run by Warwick University students for the children of asylum seekers and refugees in Coventry. The group was set up to give young people the opportunity to socialise, learn English and to offer and receive the support often needed to cope with life in a new country.
Snodgrass said: “I was really surprised and pleased to win.
Jigsaw is a really inspiring project conceived and run by students.
The youth group fills a gap for the students as well as the children, since many of them would never normally come into contact with asylum-seekers.”
Snodgrass joined the Evening Telegraph after completing Trinity Mirror’s 16-week editorial training course in Newcastle.
Christian Allsworth was the winner of the non-professional category for an article that was published in the Bradford Telegraph & Argus about the Chantelle Bleau Memorial Fund. The fund was set up to raise awareness of volatile substance abuse, following the death of Chantelle Bleau, a 16-year-old who died after being overcome by fumes when inhaling lighter fuel.
The winners were offered the chance to interview television presenter Cat Deeley, who is an ambassador for The Prince’s Trust.
John Robertson, president of the Newspaper Society and deputy chairman of the Newbury Weekly News, said: “It is vital that we foster editorial talent in the regional newspaper industry. This is a wonderful opportunity to do that, and to recognise the important contribution that many young journalists and writers make to communities across the UK.”
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