LONDON/GENEVA 20 November – Save the Children is proud to announce the winners of its second annual Global Media Awards 2025 on World Children’s Day, celebrating excellence in journalism focused on child rights and the dedicated journalists who bring these critical stories to light.
The winning entries showcase reporting that not only exposes grave child rights violations around the world but also drives meaningful change for children. Their work brings children’s experiences to the forefront, amplifies their voices, and highlights the urgent issues children face every day.
WRITTEN NEWS: Republik and WAV Recherchekollektiv won the award for best Written News Coverage on child rights for “Camps on Samos: Detention for children, paid for by Switzerland.” This investigative article that exposed catastrophic conditions for unaccompanied refugee and migrant children living in the “Safe Area” of Samos, Greece, where children were effectively detained for months with no adequate medical care, legal support, or sanitation. The article put political pressure on authorities to intervene. The Samos “Safe Area,” was then temporarily closed and re-organised and the children were moved to safer facilities.
- BROADCAST: The Guardian won the award for best Broadcast Coverage on child rights for “The Gaza Girl whose Face was ‘Ripped Off’ by an Israeli Missile Strike”. This short film follows 13-year-old Mazyouna, a young girl from Gaza who lost the right side of her jaw in an Israeli attack that killed her brother and sister, and documents her journey to the U.S. for emergency surgery while highlighting the wider crisis of medical access in Gaza.
- Radio/Podcast: BBC Radio 4 won the award for best Radio/Podcast Coverage on child rights for “County Lines: Their World”. The powerful podcast episode investigates how criminal networks exploit vulnerable children across the UK through drug trafficking. Healthcare workers, police staff, and social services professionals report the documentary has fundamentally shifted their understanding of youth exploitation—recognising exploited children not as offenders, but as victims in need of support. The podcast has also become embedded into professional training across multiple sectors.
- Photography: AFP won best Photography Coverage on child rights for “Colombia’s desert north feels the pain of Trump’s cuts”. This photo series focuses on Colombia’s La Guajira desert, where aid cuts have deepened the hunger and poverty crisis for Indigenous and migrant families. Through testimonies from mothers, migrants, and aid workers, it exposed the human cost of political decisions. Widely republished across Latin America and beyond, the story amplified local voices and fuelled debates on international policy, migration, and cooperation.
“ As child rights violations rise amid worsening conflicts and the climate crisis, these award-winning pieces cut through the noise. They bring children’s experiences to the forefront, help amplify their voices, and drive meaningful change. These winning entries show the power journalism can have on children’s lives,” said Belinda Goldsmith, Head of Save the Children’s Global Media Unit. “We congratulate the winners on their remarkable achievements and extend our gratitude to the children featured in these pieces, who bravely shared their stories with the world.”
The 2025 awards attracted nearly 300 entries from journalists in every region where Save the Children works, spanning diverse topics from education to gender quality, child protection and climate change. Judges evaluated the entries based on compelling storytelling and relevance, adherence to child safeguarding, and tangible impact on advancing child rights
The panel of Global Media Award judges featured a diverse group of experts in international and national journalism:
- Daniel Hilton, head of news at the Middle East Eye. In April 2021, Daniel’s reporting from the Libyan town of Tarhuna on civil war atrocities was recognised with an Amnesty International Media Award. He has also been shortlisted for the Prix Bayeux awards for war correspondents and journalist of the year at the Drum awards. He has reported from across the Middle East and North Africa, most recently Sudan, Syria, Israel and Western Sahara.
- Michael Safi is a journalist at The Guardian. He was the paper’s South Asia correspondent and has reported from Australia, the Middle East, the US, and West Africa. He previously presented Today in Focus, The Guardian’s award-winning daily news podcast, and now works on longform audio investigations. His series Black Box, exploring the collision between AI and people, was named one of Apple Podcasts’ Favourites of 2024.
- Rose Wangui is a seasoned Broadcast journalist with Nation Broadcasting Division, in Kenya, reporting on various issues such as climate change, health, gender, human rights, and other community-interest topics.
- Romita Saluja is an independent journalist in India. Her work includes longform investigations, narrative nonfiction, and cross-border collaborations that explore the themes of gender, development, health, labour, migration, modern slavery and human rights. She won Save the Children’s Global Media Award in the international category in 2024.
- Sorin Furcoi, a senior photographer and photo editor with Al Jazeera based in Qatar. Sorin’s work is known for its depth and ability to capture the essence of the events he covers, often bringing attention to human rights and cultural stories through powerful visual storytelling.
- Sola Ogundipe, Health Editor at Vanguard Newspapers, is a seasoned health and science reporter with a strong focus on reproductive health issues. He has been covering the health beat for decades and is known for his objectivity and credibility in the Nigerian media and national health industry.
Save the Children first launched the awards in 2024 in honour of the centennial year since the first Declaration of the Rights of the Child–drafted by Save the Children’s founder, Eglantyne Jebb—was adopted by the League of Nations in 1924.
Save the Children is the world’s leading independent children’s organisation, working with children, their communities, and our partners worldwide, to help ensure that children around the world have a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. Every year, we reach tens of millions of children in more than 110 countries through our life-changing work.
For more details on Save the Children’s Global Media Awards, please visit: Save the Children Global Media Awards
ENDS