North West Regional College (NWRC) has been named top performing college at this year’s Northern Ireland Colleges Media Awards.

This is the fourth year of the NIMCA Awards, which were held virtually in 2021 because of Covid-19 regulations.

NWRC dominated the Photography, Moving Image Factual and Ad Production sections, with strong wins in Moving Image Fiction and Animations from SERC and SRC.

The NWRC winning entries in the NICMAs, which included students from both Strand Road and Limavady campus, dealt with a number of issues in the modern world, ranging from anxiety, community involvement and advertising.

Student Ben Lewis’ entry ‘Break the Silence’ centres on a young woman’s battle with depression and anxiety, while Benn Anderson and his team worked with local charity Foyle Search and Rescue to make a recruitment advertisement.

Suzanne Rodgers, Curriculum Manager for Media at NWRC said: “I am hugely proud of the wonderful media and journalism team who guided their students to success in this annual competition for all NI FE and HE colleges.

“Our judges Mal McCann, Irish News, Vinny Cunningham, Northland Broadcast, and Fionnuala Deane, Dog Ears Animation, worked extremely hard to choose the winners, giving some great feedback, describing many of the projects as ‘slick’, ‘professional’ and ‘clever.

“Congratulations to all of the winners from all six FE colleges. We will be back next year for the 2022 awards.”

Danny Laverty, Head of Science, Technology and the Creative industries at NWRC said:

“NWRC is delighted to have been named Top Performing College for the second year in a row. My thanks go to all of the competitors who took part in this year’s NICMAs, and to our judges who give up their time each year to mentor young people aspiring to work in the media industry. Each year this event showcases the immensely creative work that is being done in our colleges across the sector. We look forward to seeing even more of this creativity next year.”

For more information on media courses at NWRC please visit: LINK.