For the first time, Amnesty International Canada has announced that a new Youth Media Award will be added to its annual Amnesty International Media Awards. This will give youth the opportunity to showcase their talents and passion for human rights, alongside Canada’s top journalists in this field!
These awards, which have been presented for excellence in journalism and human rights since 1995, honour the efforts of journalists to increase Canadian’s awareness and understanding of a variety of national and international human rights issues. This award will recognize the role Canadian youth plays in the promotion of human rights and it will also highlight the contribution that the young generation has on this conversation. While we often talk about how youth are the leaders of tomorrow, this award recognizes the leaders that youth are today.
“I guess I was kind of mad. I mean when you feel strongly about something you start to look into it and you start to research it and yeah, that’s how I got around to writing it.”
-finalist for the Amnesty UK Young Reporter Award 2013
In pursuit of a vision where every person in the world can enjoy all the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards, Amnesty International’s mission is to conduct research and take action to prevent and end grave abuses of all human rights – civil, political, social, cultural and economic. From freedom of expression and association to physical and mental integrity, from protection from discrimination to the right to housing- these rights are indivisible.
The Youth Media Award includes many ways of covering human rights issues; whether it be printed, broadcasted or posted online, this award allows all submissions as long as they contain a national or international human rights issues, emphasizing how they impact young people. The competition is open to any student at a Canadian university or college who has had an article published or a piece broadcast or posted in a recognized student media outlet during the period from 30 September 2014 through 31 May 2015. To submit a piece of work, you can email it to youth@amnesty.ca by the end of May 2015. Whether it’s your work or you’d like to nominate someone else’s work, we encourage you to take that step and get youth’s voice out there by submitting a piece of work to Amnesty International Canada.
The winner will be announced in September 2015 with a prize of $500. The winner will also later receive an Amnesty International Canada Youth Media Award Certificate at the annual Amnesty International Canada Media Awards event held in Toronto; the winner will be able to meet and network with some of the most recognized journalists in the country!
The Amnesty UK branch has had youth media awards for many years now and Canada wishes to highlight Canadian youth in the same way. You can check out an interview with with finalists for the Young Reporter Award with Amnesty UK here.
