Guardian Me­dia Ltd's se­nior re­porter, Michelle Loubon, won the sil­ver award at the 2010 Unit­ed Na­tions Pop­u­la­tion Fund Awards cer­e­mo­ny at La Bou­can, Hilton Trinidad, St?Ann's. Her suc­cess came on the same day of the launch of the Guardian Me­dia Ltd, at Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain. Loubon was joined by win­ners from Ja­maica, in­clud­ing Car­ol Fran­cis, Sh­eryl John­son, Ty­rone Reid, Be­lize's Jules Vasqquez and Janelle Chanoma, and Guyana's Judy Fitz­patrick. The theme of this year's awards cer­e­mo­ny was Elim­i­nat­ing Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence: Chang­ing Na­ture, Pro­tect­ing the Hu­man Rights of Women. Present at the func­tion were res­i­dent co-or­di­na­tor UNDP, Dr Mar­cia de Cas­tro, deputy prin­ci­pal at UWI's St Au­gus­tine cam­pus, Pro­fes­sor Rho­da Red­dock, and di­rec­tor of the Cen­tre for Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Stud­ies, Fac­ul­ty of So­cial Sci­ences at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Guyana, Dr Palo­ma Mo­hammed.

They were joined by Ad­vo­ca­cy and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions ad­vi­sor, UNF­PA Sub Re­gion­al Of­fice for the Caribbean, Althea Buchanan, and Leah-Marie Richards, as­sis­tant rep­re­sen­ta­tive UNF­PA, T&T. Loubon, a grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), has worked at the T&T Guardian since 1998. Through­out her ca­reer she has won nu­mer­ous awards, in­clud­ing a best health sto­ry PA­HO me­dia award for 2008. She lists her hob­bies as read­ing, writ­ing and trav­el­ling. Loubon is al­so a bit of a his­to­ry buff, with a par­tic­u­lar in­ter­est in Haiti, de­vel­oped while study­ing the Hait­ian Rev­o­lu­tion at Ari­ma Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School. Loubon's win­ning sto­ry high­light­ed the work of lo­cal mis­sion­ary, Avonelle Hec­tor-Joseph, who through her char­i­ty Is There Not A Cause (ITNAC) has worked to al­le­vi­ate the suf­fer­ing of Haitians.

She worked there be­fore and af­ter the De­cem­ber 12 earth­quake that claimed more than 300,000 lives. The sto­ry re­flect­ed the com­pas­sion that Haitians felt to­ward Haiti, the first in­de­pen­dent, black-led na­tion. It spoke vol­umes about the role of the in­di­vid­ual in re­spond­ing to the needs of oth­ers, and love for hu­man­i­ty. Loubon thanked Pas­tor Dr Vic­tor Gill of Re­demp­tion Chris­t­ian Cen­tre, for putting her in con­tact with Hec­tor-Joseph which re­sult­ed in her writ­ing a sto­ry that has pro­duced "ex­tra­or­di­nary ef­fects."

Loubon agrees with Hec­tor-Joseph: "It is not enough to say Haiti I'm sor­ry."