Chuol Jany, the editor of the Catholic Radio Network alongside Nyakume Simon in the center holding their award after they were announced the second winner at the second edition of journalistic contest Hackathon - Credit: AMDISS

The Association for Media Development in South Sudan with funding from USAID has Wednesday awarded cheques to five individuals including journalists with the best innovative ideas in formation dissemination this year.

The cheques range between 2,290 and 2,300 US dollars.

Mayom Mabuong works in the health sector and becomes the first winner after pitching a project titled: “Establishment of community information hubs”.

The second winner is Chuol Jany, the editor of the Catholic Radio Network alongside Nyakume Simon whose project focuses on establishing: a “Farmer information team to mitigate the effects of flooding and agriculture in Leer and Mayendit Counties”.

Rachel Hakim Edward emerged as the third winner for initiating an online project titled: ‘Gogo Play’ a game changer in enhancing the entertainment sector in South Sudan, Juba”.

The fourth prize goes to Onen Francis and Irra Patrick under the project: “Distribution of Solar Radio to Increase Access to Radio Service in rural areas in Torit”.

Dube Simon emerged as the fifth winner in his project under the title: Empowering 20 girls and women through social media storytelling, harnessing Facebook and Tiktok for compelling short videos and stories in Yambio”.

The event is under the Sustainable Independent Media Activity (SIMA) project. followed the pitching and presentations by the contestants.

34 participants had applied but five out of 9 individuals who were shortlisted for innovative ideas won the award.

The first winner Mayom Mabuong whose project seeks the establishment of community information hubs in six counties of Lakes State says his program will help debunk and counter disinformation.

“We have a prevalent of disinformation in our community, what is lacking in South Sudan now is not the access of community but access to accurate information and to have the good recording of information in the local community,” said Mayom.

“I initiated this to go back to the community because, in Lakes State, we have eight counties, out of eight counties, I am going to cover six counties,” he said.

On his part, Chuol Jany who became the second winner alongside Nyakume Simon under their project in Leer and Mayendit Counties in Unity States aims to inform farmers on weather adaptation.

“This award means a lot as we are the people who have been inspired by seeing our communities facing a lot of difficulties,” Chuol said.

“We got this award based on our project which is about creating information for the farmers on how they can use a new technique of farming during the flooding,” he said.

“There are crops that you can grow, that’s why we came up with this project so that we go, inform the communities, telling them the mechanism through expert views.

“We will talk to some experts who know more about agriculture and then we will use that information, share that with farmers, bring some farmers on the radio stations and they will also inform other farmers on how they can cultivate well”.

The third winner Rachael Hakim under her project titled: “Gogo Play’ says she will use the award to help enhance the entertainment industry.

“I just love the consistency, the speed, everything being done, it is very professional and top to the notch,” said Hakim.

“Let me say, the whole concept is, I felt more than empowerment but opportunity, a platform and a voice being heard from a young person like me to ears of people who are capable of pushing something to happen”.

Meanwhile, Irra Patrick who works alongside Onen Francis to distribute solar radios to communities in Torit, Eastern Equatoria State says, they have inquired to procure the radio sets following an assessment.

According to Irra, the project targets residents with limited access to radio services.

“I’m so happy about winning this, we are going to distribute radios to the rural part of Torit so that they can have access to radio service,” Irra said.

“We are working as a team, we have an innovation group, some are working in Juba and some in Torit, we sent a team to Torit to assess how people their access information,” he said.

“We realized that people in most of the villages have no access to the newspaper, there is a problem with electricity, then the majority of them, due to their low level of education cannot even access the internet.

“One thing for sure, Torit have three radio stations that’s where they could get the information but having no radio means, this is a hindrance to them, this is a blockage to the access to information, that’s where we came up with the solution of providing them with radio sets so that they can access the radio service”.

Dube Simon who emerged as the fifth winner says he will use the money from the award to transform the usefulness of the social media platforms in passing crucial information to the public.

According to him, he has identified 20 women and girls to train to implement the project.

“I plan to go to Yambio and train 20 girls and women, you know the intention of social media, not only using platforms like TikTok for entertainment but using it to disseminate information,” Dube said.

“I got this idea after seeing good articles in newspapers or magazines dying off. Good articles but because people are too lazy to read or some are illiterate, they cannot read,” he said.

“You have a long article that is very good but people don’t want to read it. So, I decided to look at it that way around because I am a Tiktocker, I realized that most people on TikTok are checking videos, they just have fun but now what if I use that platform to cause an impact like train girls because everyone wants to see a beautiful girl.

“I will teach girls first of all how to create content in their social issues, and their environment.

“They have a lot of issues they go through but sometimes they don’t know how to speak now the platform is there, but they don’t know how to use it.

“I will train them how to create stories from their issues around them, how to script it and how to act in and put on camera and how to post it”.

Ayaa Irene, the Director of AMDISS says the project focuses on increasing access to information in some of the remote areas in parts of the country.

“We have just concluded round two of Hackathon Innovation and we have awarded five winners; they have different projects that target the locations of Yambio, Leer, Lakes State and Juba,” Ayaa said.

“These are the areas that round two of the Hackathon is looking at. So, the projects range from training young people on using social media to create impact, like creating more access to information. This is not the first Hackathon; we had the first one that took place last year.”