David Chisanga and Cillian Callaghan pictured with their CRAOL Gold award.
Three Mary Immaculate College (MIC) graduates have been awarded a prestigious radio award for a documentary focusing on female education in Afghanistan during Taliban rule.
The documentary, which was broadcast on Wired 99.9FM, the on-campus fully licensed radio station, was produced and narrated by David Chisanga, MA in Media Studies graduate with production support from Cillian Callaghan, BA in Liberal Arts graduate and with expert input from Nasratullah Taban, Afghan native and MA in Media Studies graduate.
The documentary was part of a series of programmes of In The Diaspora which follows the lives of people who left their home country and come to Ireland either for work, study, business or asylum.
The documentary was awarded the Gold award in the Social Benefit Talk Programme at the 2023 CRAOL Achievement Awards which celebrate excellence in community radio broadcasting across Ireland. It was certainly an exciting day for David and Nasratullah who were absent from the awards ceremony as they were graduating with an MA in Media Studies from MIC at the same time. At the Graduation ceremony, Nasratullah was also awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award in recognition of his work in the field of human rights. His fellow CRAOL awardees, Cillian and David, were elected as President and Vice-President of Academic Affairs of the Mary Immaculate Students’ Union (MISU) earlier this year.
The documentary topic was inspired by a conference held at MIC in March 2023 in which Nasratullah was involved in organising. The ‘Women in Education: Afghanistan and Ireland’ conference brought together Afghan natives, academics, human rights organisations and media experts to discuss the Western withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and the subsequent plight of women in the country, particularly in accessing education.
