Boden Honoured
The life and work of veteran Australian journalist, the late Ian Clive Boden, was honoured by his former students at Divine Word University with a video tribute and a poem as part of the World Media Freedom Day celebrations at the Madang campus last Friday.
The video tribute and poem was among various activities the students and staff of the Communication Arts, PNG Studies (Arts) and Social and Religious Studies departments put on to mark the day the world commemorates freedom of the media and what it stands for.
The other highlight of the day was the awarding of the annual DWU/UNESCO Communication & Development Award to the National Film Institute (NFI) for promoting national development through their films over the years since 1975 when it was established.
Mr Boden died last November in Madang where he had been lecturing in journalism and media studies at the Communication Arts Department since 2003.
The students put together the short video presentation describing the life and work of Mr Boden who had been living and working in PNG for over 40s after arriving in the country from Australia to work for the Australian Broadcasting Commission (now Corporation) in 1962.
Head of Communication Arts, Br Michael McManus when announcing the winner said “this UNESCO/DWU award especially acknowledges the development aspect of all their (NFI) films.
<21-Mar-2010ple do in these films are presented as models of development, especially for rural and remote people who generally miss out on all forms of development.”“We celebrate the achievements of the NFI today and we thank them for their wonderful contribution to communication and development in PNG,” said Br McManus.
Two NFI staff, Chicco Michelle Baru and Robert Buleka, received the award on behalf of the organisation.
Other highlights of the day included speeches by journalism student, Joel Hamago on the value and importance of media freedom. Other speakers included ABC journalist, Scott Waide, Jennifer Baing of Coral Reef Alliance, Kumi Kispe of UNESCO and Alex Popen of the Catholic Archdiocese of Madang.
The World Media Freedom Day, which falls on 3rd of May was celebrated at DWU on Friday 1st of May as Sunday May 3 was the DWU Open Day.
