Caleb University academics Solomon Oyeleye and Ifedolapo Ademosu win Unicef prize

TWO Nigerian lecturers at the Caleb University at Imota in Lagos State have been named as joint winners of the 2021 Unicef-International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) Communication for Development Research Fund.

Funded by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (Unicef), the award is given to two different media academics annually. This year, Solomon Oyeleye, the acting head of department and lecturer Ifedolapo Ademosu, both from the university's department of mass communication, were announced as winners of the grant.

Caleb University spokesman Wale Adekoya, said the announcement about them winning the grant was contained in a letter from Elske Van de Fliert, the director of the Centre for Communication and Social Change at the School of Communication and Arts of the University of Queensland, Australia, on behalf of IAMCR. He added that their winning proposal, titled Trust and Mistrust in a Pandemic: Evaluation of Acceptance of Covid-19 Communication Tools in Use in Nigeria, was adjudged among the best two from all entries received by the international body from communication scholars across the globe.

IAMCR's second award this year was won by Sneh Gupta of the Department of Mass Communication at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprasta University in New Delhi. She was awarded for her project titled Empowering Adolescent Girls through Digital Interventions in Rural Rajasthan: A Case Study of Girls Effect’s Chaa Jaa (Go Forth and Shine) Programme.

Mr Adekoya said: “The two Caleb University winners had early in March 2021, also won selection for an international workshop on Teaching Disinformation in Higher Education, organised by Mediawell, an arm of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) in conjunction with the Shorenstein Center, and the Center for an Informed Public. They were part of 30 global scholars that participated in the workshop on March 19 and the only two scholars from Nigeria on the programme.”

Funded by Unicef  and managed IAMCR, the research initiative is targeted at advancing the understanding about how communication for development contributes to the sustainable development goals.  The research is expected to contribute to the work of the Global Alliance for Social and Behaviour Change.