Journalism trainee Catherine Spring has won a national writing competition and scooped an overseas trip to report on an aid project for The Guardian.

The Trinity and All Saints University student is studying for the postgraduate diploma in print journalism at the Centre for Journalism in Leeds.

The competition she won was organised by The Guardian and Christian Aid.

She said: “I can’t tell you how much it means to be going to report on the issues that I am most passionate about. I promise that I’ll do my best to meet Guardian standards. It’s a bit scary, to tell the truth.”

Before starting the course at Trinity and All Saints in January 2002, Catherine worked as a press officer for Oxford-based environmental charity Earthwatch.

She said: “It was when I was working in that role that I realised I wanted to be a journalist. I wanted to be the one writing the stories, not feeding them to the media.”

Back to the training index

Do you have a story about the training regional press journalists? Ring 0116 227 3122/3121, or e-mail [email protected]