Guardian Journalism Competition

Many crucial issues facing the developing world are often overlooked or underrepresented by the media. Which is why the Guardian decided to launch the Guardian International Development Journalism Competition.

In 2009 Find Your Feet was chosen as one of the NGO partners for this prestigious competition. Kevin Perry, one of the amateur finalists and Rebecca Stewart, one of the professional finalists visited India to research their pieces.

They call this progress

"Industrialisation is theoretically the point at which a nation becomes 'developed' and extreme poverty eradicated. Managing the process within its context however, involves juggling a complex set of interests and beliefs."

Rebecca Stewart, Guardian Journalism Competition Professional Finalist.

Rebecca Stewart visited our work in Chhattisgarh where she learnt about the plight of the tribal people living in its forests. Chhattisgarh is, as Rebecca writes, India's mineral wealthiest state. This has lead to a "crazy land grab for minerals, with tribal people being forced off their land, destroying a people and their culture." (Professor Kalele, retired professor of economics from Ravi Shankar university, Raipur)

Find Your Feet is supporting tribal people to retain their customary rights to the forest. Read more

 Visit The Guardian website to read Rebecca's article

Handmade tale

Weaver Nirmala, quoted in an article by Kevin Perry, Guardian Journalism Competition Amateur Finalist.

Kevin Perry visited our work in Varanasi where he spoke to handloom weavers. As Kevin explains, over the past decade handloom weaving "has seen falling demand, rising costs and increased foreign competition decimate the trade. At its peak, it employed a million people in this area. Now it employs less than half that."

For the last eight years, Find Your Feet has been supporting handloom weavers to develop viable solutions to the crisis they face. To ensure sustainable benefits for weavers, we have been fighting to secure a Geographical Indicator for the Benarsi sari. In September this year our campaign succeeded. Read more

 Visit the Guardian website to read Kevin's article. Kevin has also written a blog of his trip.

Award ceremony

The winners of the Guardian International Development Journalism Award 2009 were announced at a ceremony hosted by Natasha Kaplinsky at the Royal Academy of the Arts, London, on Thursday 19 November 2009.

Photography by Peter Caton.