Amnesty Young Reporter winner
Many congratulations to Jordan Gordon-Harris (3N) who has been named Young Human Rights Reporter (Lower Secondary) in this year's Amnesty Youth Awards. Jordan was presented with his prize by Radio 1 Xtra presenter Nick Bright at Amnesty’s London Headquarters in an inspiring ceremony on Wednesday 29 April.
His winning entry was entitled “Wasted Lives” and it questioned the effectiveness of sending young offenders to prison. He was inspired to write the piece by his aunt, who works in the prison service. Jordan described winning as ecstatic: “I worked hard writing this piece and it paid off! I feel very proud and humble to be named as the winner. I hope my entry will change people’s opinions. Everyone deserves a second chance. I am interested in topics about young people and why some people seem to get on well and others have a rocky start in life. I started thinking about people who get into trouble at school and are excluded and how their lives might change. My Aunty works in prisons and she told me what life is like being ‘inside’ – not fun! This made me more committed to writing about young people and why prison is not the answer to changing their lives.”
I was so impressed by the subjects people chose. They were very relevant and written with a great deal of passion. There was no question that they felt strongly about what they were writing.
Sir Trevor McDonald
The Amnesty Youth Awards celebrate young people’s talent for human rights reporting, photography, songwriting (and performing), campaigning and fundraising. This year the Awards received over 5,500 entries from more than 200 schools nationwide. Journalist Sir Trevor Macdonald, OBE was the judge for the Journalism categories for this year’s Youth Awards and Richard Branson is the Amnesty Youth Ambassador.
