The Hague, the Netherlands, 29 August 2017 – The Wildlife Justice Commission has been selected as one of the four winners of this year’s edition of the NRC Charity Awards, along with Foodwatch NL (2nd prize) and Stichting Bite Back (1st prize). Foodwatch NL received the Public Award as their creative campaign obtained the largest number of public votes. A special prize was awarded to De Dierenbescherming for their online banner.
The NRC Handelsblad asked young talent from the Willem de Kooning Academy (WdKA) of Rotterdam, to develop creative campaigns for the nominated charities. For this year’s edition, 260 charities submitted their application and NRC Handelsblad selected 18 to participate. WdKA students designed the campaigns, which were reviewed by a professional jury. Creatives were made available online for people to vote for their favourite.
Peter Vandermeersch, NRC Handelsblad Editor-in-Chief, presented the Awards to the winners at a public ceremony held in Amsterdam.
“This Award will contribute greatly to putting the spotlight on increasing transnational, organised wildlife crime and on our investigations to help disrupt the criminal networks responsible,” said Olivia Swaak-Goldman, WJC Executive Director, who accepted the Award on behalf of the WJC. “We are very honoured to be among the winners of this prestigious prize. We are grateful to the NRC Handelsblad for this initiative, the jury for their contribution, the students of the WdKA for designing our campaign and to everyone who voted for helping to raise awareness about the causes of all nominees. We are also grateful to our donors, such as the Nationale Postcode Loterij, who provide critical support for our work.”
The professional jury was made up of Peter Vandermeersch (NRC Handelsblad Editor-in-Chief), Pim Gerrits (Creative Director at Havas Lemz), Krista Rozema from KesselsKramer and Jeroen van Zwam (Creative Director at Ceci n’est pas un bureau), who selected three of the winners. The public selected the fourth winner. A total of 15607 votes were received for all nominees.
The NRC Charity Awards were launched in 2011 by NRC Handelsblad with the goal of helping charities to promote their causes and reaching their target audiences. Winners are granted a double advertisement page in both NRC Handelsblad and nrc.next worth €65,000.
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The Wildlife Justice Commission is an international, independent organisation operating globally to help disrupt transnational, organized wildlife crime and get justice activated. Our scope encompasses illegal trade by organized transnational criminal networks in endangered wildlife species, timber and fisheries. Read more about our work.
WJC Media Contact:
Isabel Leal Maldonado
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