Congratulations to Aleksandar Stojkovic for his winning photo of his colleague Srdjan Ilic on an improvised anchor chair during an in-house training IREX arranged for their television station, TV 017 in Vranje (through the Serbia Media Assistance Program [12]). We at IREX love the can-do, grassroots feel that this image conveys. As one commenter stated, “improvise – adapt – overcome.” Aleksandar will receive an HD flip camera for his prize. Additionally, we’ll be featuring him and the 2nd and 3rd place winners in an upcoming story about their photos and experiences with IREX.
IREX announced the contest on February 10, soliciting images from program participants, alumni, beneficiaries, and partners (staff were not eligible to enter). All entries had to be submitted through IREX’s fanpage on Facebook. After a month of entries were collected, IREX staff narrowed down the selections to 10 finalists. All IREX fans far and wide were then able to serve as equal judges for a two-week period. The photo with the most “likes” and comments would be declared the winner.
All images received enthusiastic support, but when the deadline came on March 31, Aleksandar’s was the clear winner, with 135 people having registered their approval and more than 50 comments on the image. In second place was a touching image of Anush Kurdova (alumna of the US State Department’s Eurasian Undergraduate Exchange Program (UGRAD) [13]) helping a young girl through the Alumni Mentoring Program to write numbers on a chalkboard in a freezing classroom in Gavar, Armenia. Her photo received over 120 votes and more than 40 comments. Third place goes to Elvin Garayev of Azerbaijan for his image of an international group of fellows on the UGrad program. Both Elvin and Anush will receive standard-resolution flip cameras.
We at IREX want to thank everybody who participated—those who submitted photos or just commented and voted. It’s great to get such a personal view of your activities. We plan to have more contests in the future. If you’re involved with IREX or the projects we work on, please become a fan on Facebook if you haven’t already to keep up with our activities. And keep the photos coming on our Facebook page; we love them!