TakingITGlobal is proud to announce the inaugural year of the Adobe Youth Voices Aspire Awards, a dynamic opportunity for youth around the globe to submit their most compelling work to an international media competition. The opportunities for participants are immense! Finalists will have their work judged by a panel of youth, educators, professional artists and prominent figures in the media world, and their work will be showcased online. Voting on an “audience choice” award ensures plenty of online viewers will visit and interact with the media on display. Awards include creative software, hardware, and cash donations to a charity or cause of your choice. The deadline for submitting your media to the competition is April 20th, 2012. Find out more by visiting: www.youthvoices.adobe.com/awards

Three of our amazing educators sent us some great photos from their exhibit event which took place a few weeks ago. Congratulations to Martín, Gabriel, and Dani fo doing an amazing job celebrating their program and showcasing youth media to their community!

Educators and youth artists!

The educators presenting to their audience.

A storybook about child abuse created by one of the youth artists.

In the spring of 2011, two TakingITGlobal team members (myself included!) had the opportunity to visit two of our partner sites in Mexico and Brazil. We facilitated media-making workshops, participated in film festivals, and spent a lot of time talking with youth artists about what it means to affect positive change in the world. When we returned, we had hours of footage and lots of great photos. We decided to put together a short video featuring many of the youth we met on our travels to tell the world about the impact that youth can have when they have the power to use their voices. Here it is! We hope you enjoy it.

Perspectives - Youth insights on global issues. from TakingITGlobal on Vimeo.

On November 9th, 2011 Kate Gatto, who facilitated this year's core training course and Francisco Pereira, TIG's Director of Community Programs, attended Nia Centre for the Arts' Annual General Meeting. 

Nia Centre for the Arts is a collaborative Art Centre that represents Afro-Diasporic arts and culture both locally and internationally, while working with young people through the arts to foster social change. They are based in Toronto and they partnered with the Boys & Girls Club to deliver the Adobe Youth Voices training program. Their final projects are a series of incredible photographs that explore and define notions of community and home while breaking stereotypes about poverty. 

Kate and Francisco were thrilled to meet Letecia Rose, the educator at Nia, and were really impressed by the beautiful gallery exhibit that was set up to display some of the final projects created in the program. Congratulations, Nia Centre for the Arts! Keep up the incredible work.

Last week I had the opportunity to represent TakingITGlobal and feature Adobe Youth Voices at the UNESCO Youth Forum. The forum took took place between October 17-20, 2011 in Paris, France. It brought together 200 youth delegates and 150 observers from around the world to discuss, debate, and exchange ideas on the Forum’s themes and have the opportunity to present their recommendations to the representatives of Member States during the 36th UNESCO General Conference.

The main theme of the event was "How Youth Drive Change" and delegates were responsible for working alongside key partners and members of civil society to draft a Final Report containing recommendations on themes such as youth in public/political life, youth unemployment and countering youth exclusion.

During the opening ceremony, a special message from renowned Brazilian writer Paolo Coelho to the forum participants was screened. This was an incredibly inspiring moment for everyone in the room, and a beautiful way to start the week. As an observer, I spent most of my time hosting the booth assigned to TakingITGlobal in the Citizen Cafe, which was a centre of activity teeming with excited youth and amazing organizations showing their work. I decorated our space with print photos and posters created by our youth participants as well as our amazing banner, featuring work from the "Perspectives" series.

Every day, young people from all parts of the world would visit the booth and marvel at the Adobe Youth Voices artwork that was displayed. I had countless requests from youth and observers about how they might get involved and I was happy to tell them that we will be looking to recruit new partners and educators to deliver the program in the coming months. It was incredibly energizing to see participants' reactions to the artwork and to have the opportunity to tell them stories about the youth who worked so hard on the photos and images we exhibited. I distributed hundreds of copies of the magazine - some people took handfuls to share with their communities back home! - hundreds of bookmarks and fliers about TIG, and a hundred of the Adobe Youth Voices DVD compilations.

The week was a definite success. Besides having the opportunity to share the incredible work of our youth participants, it was an excellent opportunity to connect with many potential partners. The event provided a perfect forum and audience to share the work of our Adobe Youth Voices participants. I look forward to continuing to share the messages expressed through youth media through exciting exhibition opportunities to come!