Picture of the week: Winner of the Clean Cooling Photo Award 2025

As part of the Festival of Cooling, we invited budding photographers to show us how cooling manifests in their day-to-day life - whether that was through food, health, nature, technology, or another way meaningful to them. We had a lot of great entries, and the results are in - Carolina Namara is awarded the first prize for her photo of "The meat truck". 

The awards were presented by Honorable Minister of Environment Dr. Bernadette Arakwiye (L) and Honorable Minister of State for Agriculture and Animal Resources, Dr. Telesphore Ndabamenye (R).

The winning photo

In this image, Carolina is showing the common practice of transporting meat in non-refrigerated trucks, highlighting the broken cold-chain so clearly.

She also got an honourable mention for the striking portrait of "Cyprien Musabyimana".

Caroline Namara joined the ACES visual storytelling programme we ran this year. She was shy to admit that she didn't own a camera, but after using one from the programme, she instantly started to produce thought-provoking and engaging work, as I'm sure you will agree.

Runners up

In second and third place were Joel Ishimwe and Nelly Mwiza, respectively, who have also provided excellent entries as you can see below.

2nd place:  What goes into keeping this glass of milk fresh? In hotter climates, like Africa, dairy spoils so quickly that it doesn't remain fresh for long. It's vital that milk is refrigerated quickly.  

3rd place: The freshness of this tomato can be seen for just a tiny snapshot in time, before it spoils. 

Both examples show that without the cold-chain, as critical infrastructure, farmers can't keep their produce fresh during the transportation process, which decreases the value of their produce instantly.

Thank you to all

We are very proud of this year’s winners, and everyone who contributes to showcasing clean cooling and cold-chain in action. The Clean Cooling Network