The team named after veteran journalist, Kenneth Yakpawolo Best won all the awards presented at the activities marking MAJaC Week.
MAJaC Week is a week of extracurricular activities organised by the Media Academy for Journalism and Communications (MAJaC) in The Gambia to encourage students studying journalism at the academy to showcase their talents and skills in various activities.
The activities, which constitute the second edition of MAJaC Week included drama, debate, news presentation, poetry, and beauty pageant competitions.
The extracurricular activities took place from 13th to 15th March 2023. Four teams namely: Team Fatou Camara (founder of The Fatu Network), Team Jainaba Nyang-Njie (veteran journalist), Team late Deyda Hydara (co-proprietor of The Point Newspaper) and Team Kenneth Yakpawolo Best (founder of Daily Observer in The Gambia) competed for the various prices.
On the drama, Team KY Best came out first while Team The Fatu Camara took second position. On news presentation, Team KY Best emerged first position while Team Jainaba Nyang-Njie finished second position.
In the beauty pageant, Team KY Best came out first position, Team Jainaba Nyang-Njie occupy second position while Team The Fatou Camara took third position.
In the poetry competition, Team KY Best came out second position and fourth position in the athletics competition respectively.
Kenneth Y. Best is a Liberian journalist who founded the Liberian newspaper The Daily Observer and a paper of the same name in The Gambia. He fled to The Gambia on 1st August 1990. There he founded Gambia's first daily newspaper on 11 May 1992, again called The Daily Observer.
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In October 1994, following Yahya Jammeh's military coup, Best was expelled from The Gambia after the newspaper ran a series of stories that were critical of AFPRC on human rights violations, although the newspaper was allowed to continue, it was eventually shutdown by tax authorities on 23th August 2017 for non-compliance of its tax obligations.
Due to his service to The Gambia and the media fraternity, the Media Academy for Journalism and Communications deemed it necessary to name one of the teams after him.
Sheriff Bojang, founder of the Standard Newspaper who sponsored the team with T-shirts, flags, scarfs, a banner, food and refreshment for both the first and second day of the event congratulated the team.
Mr. Bojang said Kenneth Y. Best in 1992 pressed the pulse of popular journalism in The Gambia and literally gave it the kiss of life that continues to blossom today.
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