Wawatay wins Canadian and Ontario awards

Stephanie Wesley’s series of articles on prostitution in Thunder Bay have been awarded Best Feature Series by the Canadian Community Newspaper Association (CCNA).
Wesley’s exploration of prostitution and its effects on First Nations women ran in Wawatay in August and September 2012.
The series also included a personal column on the effects reporting on the topic had on Wesley.
“When I first chose to write about the topic of prostitution in Thunder Bay, it was obvious to me that First Nations women played a big part in the city’s sex trade. Simply driving down certain streets, I saw a lot of Anishinaabe women in the trade. What was even more obvious to me when I first started researching the sex trade in general was the lack of press on the subject.” Wesley said. “Once I came into contact with Bridget Perrier, who had been caught up in Thunder Bay’s sex trade at age thirteen, I realized that the women I saw on the streets was just the surface of Thunder Bay’s underground sex trade community, one which included young teenage girls. I figured that some stories are probably not told for a reason, but I felt the need to help tell this one.”
The CCNA also awarded second place in its Best Feature Story category to Wawatay’s Lenny Carpenter for his article Life goes on in Attawapiskat from January 2012.
One week before the CCNA awards were announced, Wawatay also found out it earned two second place finishes and a third place finish at the Ontario Community Newspaper Association (OCNA) annual awards.
Shawn Bell won second in the Best Editorial category for his editorial on the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug’s dispute with God’s Lake Resources from March 2012.
Wawatay’s website was cited as the second best website in its class in Ontario.
And Lenny Carpenter earned a third place in OCNA’s Education Writing category for his article on Project George, the successful program bringing youth from Moose Cree out on the land to learn traditional skills.