Even government councilor Philipp Achammer appeared at the cultural center of the South Tyrolean town of Mals on May 16th to thank the winners of the eleventh Gabriel Grüner Student Prize. Their contribution, admitted the provincial councilor for German Education and Culture, had moved him to tears, not least because he himself is the father of a child who died prematurely.
The award-winning report by Lena Unterpertinger (text) and Liam Fiechter (photos) is about children who die before, during, or shortly after birth. The two seventeen-year-old students from Brixen technical college accompanied a photographer who takes pictures of so-called star children on behalf of grieving parents. „Just as stars always remain in the sky,“ writes Lena Unterpertinger, „so too do star children keep a place in their parents“ hearts."
For the first time, a three-hour event at the Oberschulzentrum in Mals preceded the award ceremony for the student prize in the morning. Nearly three hundred students from four high schools listened enthusiastically as the prize winners presented their reports in word and image.
Praise for the two students also went to the Zeitenspiegel agency and its teachers Uli Reinhardt, Uschi Entenmann, and Bernd Hauser, and to Georg Mair, editor-in-chief of the ff magazine. Working on the project and being mentored by experienced journalists had been a formative experience.
