Former Pupil Wins Amnesty Media Award

Many congratulations to Old Wheatleyan Jonny Lawrence who has just won a 2015 Amnesty International Media Award.

Jonny, an impressive section editor for our 2010-11 edition of The Wheatleyan and final year French and Arabic Studies student at the University of Oxford, was one of over 500 guests who gathered on Thursday night in central London to celebrate the best of the year’s human rights reporting. At this event, his report on child prostitution in Zarqa, Jordan, a city 'paralysed by the mafia', which had been published late last year in The Cherwell, was a worthy winner of the Student category.

Mr Mark Woodward, Staff Editor of The Wheatleyan, said: "I am delighted that Jonny's report has received this accolade. He was an enthusiastic, prolific writer at Bablake and his expertly crafted, sensitive treatment of the harrowing plight of this abuse of human rights in Zarqa has received deserved acclaim."

Jonny is the third Bablake pupil to be recognised by Amnesty International for their journalism, since Beth Rowland, now online editor for Impact, and Lorna Williamson were runners up in 2012 for pieces they wrote about tasering and homelessness respectively.