Young journalist Anna Shemyakova wins the Imholz sponsorship award
Young journalist Anna Shemyakova wins the sixth Imholz sponsorship award. With the prize money of 7500 Swiss francs, the 28-year-old will travel to the West Bank.
The wall dividing Israel and the Palestinian territories is seven hundred kilometers long. What penetrates through it are mostly only images of political unrest, torment and struggle, which does not correspond to the whole reality. Anna Shemyakova wants to show that there is another world in the West Bank: one with universities, street cafes, beaches, with hip-hop concerts and a lively art scene. It is a small universe full of people who savor life despite 540 checkpoints and eight-meter-high walls.
Anna Shemyakova will travel to Israel and Palestine in the fall of 2018 with the 7500 Swiss francs in prize money from the Imholz Sponsorship Award and produce a travel report for the SonntagsZeitung. In this way, the Imholz Sponsorship Award takes up precisely where conventional tour operators, airlines and tourism organizations deny journalists support: in the realization of reportage ideas that are not commonplace.
Born in Ukraine and raised in Germany, the journalist has lived in Switzerland since her last master's semester at the University of Zurich. In Germany, Anna Shemyakova gained experience in TV at RTL and a Kabel eins production company. From 2014-2016, Anna Shemyakova worked as a journalist at the Luzerner Rundschau, and today she works as an editor for the industry magazine "Hotellerie Gastronomie Zeitung". One of her main topics is digitalization in the hospitality industry.
The three-member jury, consisting of Sonja Hüsler (President Swiss Travelwriters Club and travel journalist at Ringier Axel Springer Switzerland), Katharina Deuber (board member Swiss Travelwriters Club, TV journalist and presenter) and Christoph Ammann (Head of Travel Editorial SonntagsZeitung/Tamedia and STC founding member) congratulate Anna Shemyakova warmly.
The Imholz Sponsorship Award was launched six years ago by the Hans Imholz Foundation and the Swiss Travelwriters Club. The prize is awarded for the idea rather than for the finished report. The conditions of participation for the seventh edition will be published at the beginning of 2019 on Swisstravelwritersclub.ch communicates.
