The Sandford St Martin Trust held their first in-person awards ceremony since 2019at Christ Church in Spitalfields. The awards ceremony recognised the “very best in UK broadcasting content exploring belief, religion, ethics, and spirituality”.
The first Trustees’ Award went to Rukhshana Media, a media outlet in Afghanistan dedicated to elevating the stories of women in Afghanistan. It was founded in 2020 and named in honour of Rukhshana, a girl who was stoned to death in 2015 after fleeing a forced marriage.
After the Taliban took over last year, being a female journalist in Afghanistan became even more dangerous but rather than giving up, Rukshana Media instead expanded its coverage in the face of oppression. When the founder, Zahra Joya, was introduced to accept the award, the crowd gave her a standing ovation that lasted several minutes.
“I was in my country this time last year and I never imagined Afghanistan would fall so quickly to the Taliban and my family would be forced to live in exile and my colleagues forced to live in hiding,” Joya said in her speech.
She said that she and her colleagues needed to “write as much as possible to cover every occurrence that affects women in Afghanistan”.
A second Trustees’ Award went to the comedian and actor Sir Lenny Henry “in recognition of his ongoing campaign to address inequality and under-representation in broadcasting”. He helped found the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity at Birmingham City University.
Other awards were voted on by a panel of media professionals. The categories covered all domains of broadcasting. Panorama: Is The Church Racist? a BBC investigation into racism in the Church of England took home the journalism award to open the evening. The next award, the young audience award, went to This Girl’s Changed, a BBC documentary which followed a “self-professed party girl” who moved forward and embraced Islam seven years ago, and her effort to reconnect with her hometown and old friends.
The TV/Video Award went to Brotherhood: The Inner Life of Monks, another BBC documentary which followed the monks at Mount St Bernard Cistercian Abbey as they decided to open a brewery. The Radio/Audio award was presented to A Uyghur Ramadan, a podcast by Things Unseen, which tells the story of exiled Uyghurs and their culture during Ramadan. Finally, the Radio Times Readers Award, appropriately chosen by the magazine’s readers, was awarded to Time by Jimmy McGovern, a TV drama focusing on life inside prison. First and second place were separated by just five votes.
The programs touched on different faiths and even no faith at all. “We believe that faith (or the lack of faith) plays a complex role in human experience and that better understanding of what other people believe can mitigate against prejudice and bigotry, and support cooperative endeavours at local, national and international levels,” the trust said.
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