Dear PR enthusiasts around the world,
On 20 October 2023, the best of the best of the global PR community came together for a night of celebration sponsored by Media.com at the IPRA Golden World Awards in the vibrant city of Barcelona. It was such a pleasure to meet all these wonderful people in person. The room was filled with laughter, enthusiasm, shared joy and happiness. Everyone applauded each other's excellent, creative and well-executed work. Over 140 guests from 27 countries on five continents were present and had a great time receiving well-deserved recognition for their work in communications. The appreciation was palpable.
The Grand Prix 2023 went to the brilliant "Call Russia" campaign by Not Perfect Vilnius and Stronger Together, which fights against bad and fake news. It is with great pride that I recall my January message as IPRA President 2023, when I first drew your attention to this campaign and said: As communicators, we have no weapons, only our words and our language.
Three small daily promises
We should continue to live up to our responsibility as communicators. Communication is the only way to create understanding, to share views, to exchange opinions, to create respect, and to find common ground. When we have different points of view, we should discuss, debate, and talk to each other. But we should never let weapons do the talking. That way lies devastation, despair, revenge and trauma. So let's make the first of three small daily promises. Let's promise to use peaceful words because once we focus on that we discover how language influences how we interact (see one example of here).
We are human beings: we should know better
The GWA Gala also saw the winner of the Global Contribution Award for PR that aims to achieve one of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. "Buzzing in the Museum" actually met two of the SDGs: Goal 2 Zero Hunger, and Goal 15 Life on the Land. It is a heart-warming programme by agency PressInform for the Hungarian National History Museum. Bees play an important role in the truest sense of the word: without bees there would be no flowers, no trees, no vegetables, no fruits. I remember my childhood helping my father to keep bees. The buzzing activity of these lovely creatures, the smell of warm wax, the different taste of honey according to the seasons and the sight of their waggle dance for communicating to each other appealed to my senses. Learn more about bees in this video from the WWF here. So let's make the second small daily promise for this month and pay more attention to nature, its flora and its fauna.
As we're entering November, here is my request for the third small daily promise. Let us be aware of our ancestors and elders. Let us be grateful for the generations before us, and thankful for our heritage (see here and here) and its accumulated wisdom. Moreover, let us be aware of our responsibility towards future generations.
Kind regards,
Dr. Anne-Gret Iturriaga Abarzua
IPRA President 2023
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