SIX Caribbean journalists will this Friday receive cash prizes totalling US$6,000, along with airline tickets and hotel accommodation, in the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) 2003 media awards, to be held at the Hilton Kingston Hotel.

The journalists are being rewarded for stories which dealt with curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS, curbing early initiation of sexual activity, fostering behavioural change, promoting gender equality, ending sexual exploitation (including sex tourism) or dealing with population, poverty reduction and sustainable development.

Attorney-at-law and Caribbean beauty queen, Wendy Fitzwilliam, will deliver the keynote address. Fitzwilliam, 31, the 1998 Miss Universe from Trinidad and Tobago, and a UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador, will speak on the subject of "Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights", the theme of this year's media awards.

Master of Ceremonies for the event is Emmy Award-winning journalist Doug Hoyte, a former news anchor and political reporter with WTSP-TV, the ABC affiliate in Tampa, Florida, and news director of WTOG-TV, St Petersburg, Florida. He is currently the director of corporate communications and guest services at Almond Resorts in Barbados. Award-winning Jamaican youth personalities Jody-Anne Maxwell, the first and only non-American to win the US Scripps Howard Spelling Bee Championship, and Shaun Ashley, recently named the top boy in the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) will announce the winners.

Chief judge, Tony Best, an international editor, and panel moderator Ian Williams, chairman of the awards committee of the United Nations Correspondents Association, will both be in attendance.

The 2003 UNFPA Caribbean Media Awards, staged by UNFPA and Counterpart International, is supported by Air Jamaica, Almond Beach Resorts in Barbados, Caribbean Star Airlines, Caribbean Sun, Half Moon Montego Bay, Hilton Caribbean, Hilton Kingston and Bay Gardens Hotel as well as Kréole in St Lucia.

Beres Hammond woos Toronto fans

Toronto film fest includes Spike Lee, Coens movies

Caribbean Model Search unveils Sunday