Vision Group journalists win 2023 national population awards

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Vision Group journalists have won two of the five awards on offer at the 2023 National Population Awards.

New Vision multimedia journalists Jacky Achan and Prossy Nandudu won the Overall Journalist of the Year award and Print category award, respectively.

Journalist of the year Jacky Acan. (Photo by Eddie Ssejjoba)

Prossy Nandutu of the New Vision won the news paper category. (Photo Eddie Ssejjoba)

Acan receiving an award from the guest of honor. (Photo by Eddie Ssejjoba)

The awards ceremony was held at Hotel Africana in Kampala on Thursday.

Also announced winners were David Okema of the Daily Express, who won the online category while Henry Mugenyi and Martin Maiko, took the television and radio categories, respectively.

This year's winners. (Photo by Eddie Ssejjoba)

Each category winner gets a cash prize of sh1 million and the overall winner sh2 million.

The event also doubled as the launch of the State of the Population Report 2023.

Speaker of Parliament Anita Among, who was represented at the event by Packwach Woman MP Jane Avur Pacuto, launched the report.

Unveiling the State of Uganda Population Report. (Photo by Eddie Ssejjoba)

It is themed 'Mindset change for a favourable age structure: A prerequisite for Wealth Creation'.

In a speech read for her by Pacuto, the Speaker called for a mindset change to address Uganda's rapidly growing population, which the report indicated increased to 46.2 million from 45 million in 2022.

The guest of honor who represented the speaker of Parliament. (Photo by Eddie Ssejjoba)

“If we are to realize our development targets and achieve 2040 targets, we need to change the mindset of our people,” she said.

According to Among, there is also a need for Uganda to aggressively fight teenage pregnancies, “which has remained persistently high, contributing to a high population growth rate of three per cent and a high maternal mortality rate”.

“There are many teenagers that die while giving birth. This is unacceptable,” she added.

Among said a high population growth rate is undesirable because it places undue pressure on the economy, which needs to be growing at three times as much if we are to benefit from a growing population.

The report was compiled by the National Population Council with support from the United Nations Population and the Netherlands Embassy in Uganda.