Youth safety: multimedia competition for schools - Camden Rise

Camden Youth Safety Fortnight (25 June to 9 July 2021) - Secondary Schools’ Multimedia Creative Competition

• Up to £500 per school is available for each selected entry by Camden secondary schools
• The money would be used by selected schools to develop multimedia projects on a range of themes related to youth safety (see themes below)
• Schools need to submit a brief expression of interest by Friday 19 March 2021 – please fill in this simple form
• The selected schools will develop their projects and submit final entries by 1 June 2021. An overall winner and two runners-up will be chosen from these submitted entries and prizes awarded - including a top prize of a further £500 for the winning school, as well as vouchers for participating students (more details below).

The overall theme is ‘keeping children and young people in Camden safe’ but your project can focus on any three elements of this (or more than one of these):

• Building resilience and making positive choices – including staying safe / feeling safe on the streets and preventing youth violence; not becoming a victim or perpetrator of youth violence
• Promoting opportunities and empowering young people – how can young people steer away from youth crime and get involved in positive activities or find employment? What keeps young people safe? (e.g. Their school or youth centre? Good family relationships and friends? Having a job?
• Encouraging participation and creating social action – e.g. ensuring ‘stop and search’ is fairly used by the Police; knowing your rights; encouraging better relationships with the Police and other agencies.

Camden Youth Safety Fortnight, from 25 June to 9 July 2021, will be a call to action for everyone in Camden. Camden Council believes that keeping young people safe is everyone’s business. As part of this work, the Council is launching the second Camden Youth Safety Week Multimedia Competition. We were blown away by the quality of entries last year so we can’t wait to hear your ideas for this year.

Who can enter?
The competition is open to children and young people in Camden secondary schools, up to age 18.
Entries must be by children and young people in partnership with their school – and can be generated by students, with the support of their teachers or school staff, or initiated by a teacher or other member of school staff but shaped and creatively driven by the students.

What do schools have to do?
A creative or multi-media project on a theme of ‘Keeping children and young people in Camden safe’ – this can be interpreted widely by entrants and is not limited to knife crime or youth violence. See the suggested themes above. Entries could include:

• poems, short stories or plays (written or performed / videoed; please ensure any soundtrack music used is your own or copyright free)
• short films, photography and video games
• paintings, poster designs, collages or 3D artworks (e.g. using mixed media)
• songs or music, including poems and raps set to music (audio / sound recordings or performances / videos. Please ensure any backing tracks you use are your own or copyright free).

For any questions regarding entries, please email youthsafety@camden.gov.uk  

Things to consider in your entry are:

• Creativity: needs to be a creative response to the subject of ‘children and young people’s safety’
• Subject: see our main three themes above
• Medium: can be in a visual or written format, including a poem, short story (no more than 3,000 words ideally), spoken word (video of performance poetry), artwork (two dimensional drawing, painting, collage, 3D sculpture or relief – must be portable), film (animation, drama or documentary, no longer than 15 minutes). See examples of last year’s work here
• Suitability: although this is about sensitive subjects, including violence, the content needs to be suitable to be read or watched by children and young people under the age of 16. Therefore, use of graphic violence and bad language may mean your expression of interest and project will not be considered. Please use your creativity to get your message across – you can be controversial and provocative as long as you are also thought-provoking and sensitive at the same time.

Your expressions of interest must describe clearly what the project is and how it will highlight the themes and issues described above, as well as what medium you will use and how you will involve students / the role of school staff. Please download and fill in our short form here. 

• Please note that all competition entries may be shown during Youth Safety Fortnight (the winning entry and two runners-up will definitely be shown)
• Please email your expression of interest form and entries to youthsafety@camden.gov.uk

Prizes
The winning entry and two runners-up will be published during Youth Safety Fortnight 2021 to raise awareness. In addition to this, the overall winner will receive a main prize of £500 for their school, plus vouchers for participating students. There will be two smaller prizes of £150 for schools which come second and third, plus vouchers for participating pupils.