Jamaica National and Carimac Media Award winners: (From left) Osmond Henry, Jodi-Ann Gray, Steve Brown, Shanoy Harris and Soroya Julian show off their trophies and plaques during the Jamaica National/CARIMAC Media Awards presentation ceremony, held at Jamaica National Building Society head office in Half-Way Tree, St. Andrew, on Wednesday. - Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer

Several students of the Uni-versity of the West Indies (UWI) were on Wednesday rewarded for their exceptional performance in the area of communications by Jamaica National Building Society (JN) and the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication (CARIMAC).

The students, honoured for their public service announcements (PSA) done in their final year to raise awareness of several issues using different media, were presented with trophies and plaques for their hard work.

Jody-Ann Gray received the first-place prize in the radio category for her PSA called 'Save the Children', which deals with violence against that vulnerable group.

Grenadian-born Ruth Roberts was rewarded for her PSA in the television category for her tips on 'hurricane preparedness', while Inspector Steve Brown of the Jamaica Constabulary Force received the award for his feature article in the CARIMAC Times called 'Dodging bullets while shooting ahead.'

The award for social marketing went to the four-member group consisting of Shanoy Harris, Soroya Julian, Osmond Henry and Jamila Lewis, for their PSA on 'male health'.

Speaking at the presentation ceremony held at JN's Half-Way Tree offices, Wednesday, Brian Schmidt, marketing manager for Irie FM and Zip 103 FM, encouraged the recipients to be champions in their profession.

He also implored them to be aware of the challenges in the profession, such as the issues surrounding libel and defamation.

Referring to the awards, he said, "This provides the first opportunity and the first step for a lot of students to show their work in a commercial setting in the real world and how it is seen and reviewed through those filters."

He encouraged them not to rely totally on technology as it can easily become a crutch, but rather to develop their craft.

The JN/CARIMAC Media Awards, now in its 13th year, was developed to recognise budding journalists graduating from UWI to provide them with their first real taste of getting their work exposed through local as well as regional media.