Hennessy awarded by IPPF

Local announcer with the National Broadcasting Network (NBN), Allyson Hennessy, has been awarded the Rosa Cisneros Memorial Information Award 2004 from the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) Western Hemisphere Region at a ceremony held on June 19 at its Regional Council Meeting in Antigua, Guatemala.

Hennessy is the second Caribbean journalist to be honoured with the award. Nominees came from North, Latin America and the Caribbean. The Rosa Cisneros Memorial Award was designed to honour an individual or media organisation making significant contribution to public awareness of sexual and reproductive health issues. The award recognised Hennessy for her work on NBN’s Dateline programme. “For the past eight years, Hennessy has given outstanding effort to promote family planning association of Trinidad and Tobago (FPATT) in the media by regular segments regarding sexual and reproductive health,” the FPATT said in a media release. The work of the FPATT was also recognised with the award of a WestWind Foundation Reproductive Health and Rights Programme Grant.

The  FPATT said the grant signified outstanding accomplishment on issues of sexual and reproductive health in adolescents, especially its youth programme “De Living Room.” “The success of our programmes relies on public awareness. By not only providing us a venue but exhibiting extreme dedication to furthering the goals of FPATT and the IPPF, Ms Hennessy has truly earned the recognition she gets through this award,” said Dona Da Costa Martinez, FPATT executive director.