News Associates to train latest recipient of Daily Mail Stephen Lawrence Scholarship aimed at promoting diversity in journalism

News Associates is to train the latest recipient of the Daily Mail Stephen Lawrence Scholarship aimed at promoting diversity in journalism.

Kamal Sultan will be the sixth Daily Mail Stephen Lawrence scholar. He joins the fast-track course in our new London HQ starting on February 18.

The 21-year-old – whose parents fled to Britain to escape the Somalian civil war – secured a place on the Daily Mail trainee programme as a Stephen Lawrence scholar.

News Associates and its parent company Beat Media Group will provide a full bursary for the training fees.

The Daily Mail will pay his salary while he is on the course and he will then join the paper with their other trainee reporters in the September intake.

All News Associates courses are accredited by the National Council for the Training of Journalists. And we are the UK’s number one NCTJ journalism school.

The scholarship programme was launched by the Daily Mail in association with the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust which works to provide opportunities for talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds who are eager to succeed.

The trust, founded by the murdered teenager’s mother in 1998, already has a track record of helping disadvantaged students into careers in architecture – the profession A-level student Stephen dreamed of entering.

Kamal said: “I am excited about studying at News Associates and am hugely grateful to them and the Daily Mail for this opportunity.

“The skills I will be taught on the course, including shorthand, will give me the best chance to succeed in my chosen career.”

Kamal’s father Mohammed, who works for Tesco, and mother Roda, a care worker, met in Haringey, North London after separately successfully claiming asylum in the 1990s.

The couple married and have five children – Zak, 26, preparing to study for a masters in psychology, Younis, a 24-year-old civil engineer, Muna, 23, a teacher who has moved back to Somalia and Hodan, 17, studying A levels.

Their youngest son Kamal decided he wanted to be journalist at 13 when he began writing articles for a football fan website.

Daily Mail trainee programme manager Sue Ryan said: “Kamal is exactly the sort of person the Mail had in mind when it set up the scheme. He is the sixth scholar to be taken in under the scheme.

“The Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and MailOnline have taken on lots of trainees who have been trained at News Associates and we have been impressed with the results.  We were not expecting them to offer him a bursary and are grateful for that offer.”

News Associates manager editor James Toney said: “We are excited to be working with the Daily Mail to help provide Kamal with this fantastic opportunity.

“As the UK’s leading journalism school supplying the best-trained young journalists to the industry, helping to improve newsroom diversity in newsrooms across the media is one of our key objectives.

“We are also proud to be associated with the Daily Mail Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust scholarship scheme.”

Stephen’s mother Doreen Lawrence, now Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, said: “I am delighted Kamal has been chosen to receive the Stephen Lawrence trainee reporter scholarship in partnership with the Daily Mail, News Associates and Beat Media.

“The Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust’s mission is to transform the career opportunities of aspiring, talented young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“This rare opportunity to train in journalism is an excellent example of how we demonstrate Stephen’s legacy.”

Stephen was stabbed to death at the age of 18 in an unprovoked racist attack at a bus stop in Eltham, South East London, in 1993.

The Daily Mail campaigned to bring the killers to justice and published a landmark front page accusing five men of the murder.

In February 1997, under the headline MURDERERS, the newspaper printed pictures of each of the suspects after they refused to answer the most basic of questions at an inquest into Stephen’s death.

Two of the men named – Gary Dobson and David Norris – were eventually convicted of murder in 2012.

Click here to learn more about our work with the Daily Mail, as well as The Times, Yahoo, The Sunday Times and The Sun.