The award, from nominations submitted entirely by freelancers, is for the person who has made an outstanding contribution to the work of freelancers. It will be presented at The Rory Peck Awards in London on 18 October.

In November 1999, Raisa was commissioned to film the Russian siege of Grozny . For three months Chechnya had been effectively isolated by Russia and no footage of the war had been available to broadcasters. Her producer, Paul Mitchell of Wilton films says: "I couldn't talk to her directly. Neither land lines nor cell phones worked. I wrote out a list of what I thought were the necessary sequences, dispatched this by email …and waited. My original idea was that she should record what life was like behind the siege lines in Grozny."

However, everybody in Grozny was sheltering underground. There wasn't anything to film. Instead, Raisa travelled from her home in Grozny to the outlying villages where much of the population was hiding. Travelling from village to village and filming, she sheltered with women and children through Russian bombing and helicopter assaults, helping them to collect fuel, food and water. She visited hospitals where emergency surgery was carried out in appalling conditions. On several occasions she filmed only a few hundred metres from the front lines. Her male taxi driver refused to stay with her, afraid that the city would be overrun at any minute.

On the 12 December 1999, Raisa crossed from Chechnya into the neighbouring republic of Georgia, a route under constant attack. She smuggled her film past Russian lines travelling only by night to the border crossing. Says Paul Mitchell " I waited there for a week for her to make the trip. I had no way of knowing if she was alive or dead, or what she had filmed…when she made it we finally met and sat down to view her work. I realised then that she wasn't just brave - she was good. "

The resulting film was the first in-depth report from behind Russian lines in the Chechen War. It has now become too dangerous for Raisa to stay in the region and she has been granted political asylum in the USA.

Other Nominations include producer of BBC News Nick Springate for keeping safety a priority, making sure that procedures are extended to the whole crew, and for capitalising on the strengths of freelancers.

Anila Alibali, a press officer for the International Red Cross in Albania, was nominated for enabling freelance journalists and camera operators to get into remote areas of the country where access would not otherwise be possible.