AHA MEDIA wishes to give a big THANK YOU and a huge round of applause to Megaphone Magazine – Vancouver’s Street Magazine! Fantastic work and very prestigious honors!  You have represented us to the world in the very best of ways and we are honored to have worked with you! ! 🙂

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Megaphone Wins Two International Awards
On Thursday, May 14th, Megaphone Magazine was the proud winner of two international awards at the International Network of Street Papers (INSP) conference in Bergen, Norway. Functionality‘, which appeared in Megaphone Issue #2.Falling Through the Cracks,’ which was published in The Tyee and then republished in Megaphone Issue #15:The prestigious international judging panel included Martin Wanjala Ocholi, a media consultant from Kenya; Sanjay Suri, editor for Inter Press Service (IPS), Europe-Mediterranean (IPS); Silja J.A. Talvi, an award-winning investigative journalist and author from the United States; and Oddleiv Apneseth, an award-winning photographer from Norway. The awards were chaired by David Schlesinger, Editor-in-Chief of Reuters News and INSP’s Honorary President.Megaphone would like to congratulate Ahmad, Sean and The Tyee for their dedication to raising awareness about poverty and ending homelessness. 

Megaphone contributing photographer Ahmad Kavousian won ‘Best Photograph – Evoking deeper perspectives on poverty and injustice’ for his photo, ‘

“A beautifully shot image of a hammock rigged up on a beach debris – as Vancouver’s lack of affordable housing pushes more and more people onto the streets, the photo expresses the lengths to which some are driven just to find a place to sleep.”

And Megaphone Editor-in-Chief Sean Condon won the ‘Special Award for External Press – Advocating for the needs and rights of homeless people’ for his story, ‘

“Paul ‘Duncan’ Geisbrecht, a Vancouver homeless man, suffered from schizophrenia and crack cocaine addiction. When he died last year, he was just one week away from entering supportive housing. Tracing Paul’s life story, this piece illustrates how faults in Canada’s social system can have tragic consequences for society’s most vulnerable.”

“On behalf of all our vendors and volunteers, I would like to express what a great honour it is for Megaphone to win these awards,” said Condon, who attended the ceremony in Bergen with Megaphone editor Darren Atwater. “The International Network of Street Papers is a powerful movement that is reshaping the debate about poverty around the world while helping provide thousands of low-threshold jobs to homeless and low-income people. We here at Megaphone are very privileged to be a part of this movement and thank the judging panel for recognizing our hard work.”

“As a member of the official judging panel for two years running, I can attest to the continuing quality and depth of these entries, across the board–a fact most certainly due to rather than in spite of the diverse contexts, languages and geographies from which they have come,” said Schlesinger.

For more information, contact:

Sean Condon
Editor-in-Chief
778-835-4440
sean@megaphonemagazine.com