Canadian journalism students ready for BarentsObserver

With the award, Samia Madwar and Ora Morison will stay at the newsdesk of BarentsObserver this spring.

This is the second year Canadian journalism students travels to Kirkenes in Northern Norway for a five week internship with BarentsObserver. The awards were announced this week by Carleton’s School of Journalism and Communication and the Norwegian Ambassador to Canada, Her Excellency Else Berit Eikeland.

- Journalism and diplomacy have many things in common, communication being the key, said the Norwegian ambassador to Canada, Else Berit Eikeland, when announcing the winners.

Madwar, 23, and 22-year-old Morrison, who are both pursuing masters degrees, are thrilled with the opportunity that will allow them to spend five weeks in Norway while working as journalism interns and writing stories for the Barents Observer in Kirkenes. They will also travel to Russia and complete an article or series of articles for publication in Canada on an issue or series of issues that affect both Canada and Norway as Arctic nations.

- Travelling in general, and meeting people from around the world with different world views, enriches the way that you report on things and the kinds of questions that you ask, says Samia Madwar. -By experiencing this kind of diversity, your questions become more informed, you are more open to different ideas that are coming to you and you can make sense of them in a different way.

- Everyone so far has been so supportive and excited for us that I just feel so lucky to be working with these people and to have this opportunity. I think travelling always makes you a more interesting person and just fills you with experiences and shapes who you become, says Ora Morison.

Madwar grew up in Syria. She graduated from McGill University in 2008 with a major in biology and minors in communications studies and German. With the goal of becoming a science writer, she pursued an internship at Canadian Geographic magazine in Ottawa for nine months, immersing herself in fact-checking, research and writing about worms and wolves. She then interned with Air Canada’s enRoute magazine in Montreal for the summer before beginning her journalism studies at Carleton. She is interested in northern issues and has visited Kuujjuaq in northern Quebec to research the impact of parasites and bacteria on sustinence hunting. She wants to spend some of her time in Norway pursuing stories about safety standards in the oil and gas industry in the Barents Region and how diseases in wildlife affect communities in the northern regions of both Canada and Norway.

Ora Morrison comes from the small town of Cayuga, Ontario, where she worked as a news reporter for a local paper, the Grand River Sachem. She graduated from the Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, where she was a staff member of UWO’s daily student newspaper, The Gazette. She was also co-editor in chief for a fashion magazine The Style Review and editor of La Baguette, a newsletter for UWO’s French club. During the summer of 2009, she worked as an intern at an accounting company in Tunisia, North Africa. She just completed an internship at the St. Catharine’s Standard. She wants to spend some of her time in Norway pursuing stories about the different experiences of Norway’s Sami and Canada’s Inuit regarding self-government and the preservation of indigenous cultures, as well as stories about the penetration of the Internet in northern regions.

The award was established by the Norwegian embassy in Ottawa last year.

Chantaie Allick, one of last year’s winners described her stay in Kirkenes last year as a wonderful adventure.

– I learnt so much from my stay in Norway, a country that is so much like, but yet so different, from Canada. Enjoyt it, she told this year’s winners.