ICDB Awards 2009 honour excellence in children’s broadcasting

UNICEF welcomed representatives of all 12 broadcasters nominated for the 2009 International Children’s Day of Broadcasting (ICDB) Awards to New York this week to celebrate their work, partake in a seminar on children’s broadcasting and youth media, and attend the 2009 ICDB Awards ceremony.

VIDEO: Watch now

Attendees at the ceremony, held last night at The Modern restaurant in mid-Manhattan, came from around the world – from television and radio stations, youth media groups and non-governmental organizations. Host SuChin Pak of MTV News congratulated the broadcasters for powerfully and positively affecting young lives.

The annual awards are given to broadcasters who support ICDB, a day set aside each year to encourage young people to get involved in television and radio broadcasting. ICDB 2009 took place in March of this year under the theme, ‘Unite for Children: Tune in to Kids.’

To read the full story, click here.

CRC video contest – deadline extended to 30 August 2009

Good news! UNICEF extended the deadline for its CRC One Minute Video Contest. Now you have a few more weeks to work on your entries for this year’s competition.  The new deadline is 30 August 2009.

We want to see what you think about child’s rights!

It’s the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), a document that celebrates all the important rights young people have. Make a one minute video showing what child rights mean to you, whether in the world at large, your country, your community or you personally.

Watch our promo video on youtube and read more about the contest on UNICEF’s Voices of Youth website.

A youth film festival for everyone

Do you make media? Want an audience for your work? Read the latest Media Magic Digest about youth film festivals here. And read on for a list of youth film festivals all around the world.  Leave a comment and let us know about youth film festivals in your region! 

GLOBAL

Kids For Kids
International film festival featuring work by kids 6-16 years of age. A festival and event for young people and media educators, with festivals in the Balkans, the UK, and Africa.  http://www.kidsforkidsfestival.org/en

StrangerFestival
An online and offline platform for self-made videos made by young people on issues that matter to them. http://www.strangerfestival.com/

AUSTRIA

YOUKI Internationale Youth Media Festival
Platform for young Austrian filmmakers under the age of 26 and on the basis of its multicultural programming facilitates international comparison. A jury of well-known figures gives six prizes, the Youki Awards. http://www.youki.at

CANADA

The Reel Youth Film Festival (Vancouver)
Festival of Reel Youth, a non-profit youth media empowerment organization. They also put together a traveling film festival out of the winning entries, and have also done projects with youth in other countries. For youth under 19. http://www.reelyouth.ca/

YoungCuts Film Festival (Montreal)
Global network of young filmmakers and videographers under the age of 25, with annual film festival. http://www.youngcuts.com

FINLAND

Videotivoli International Video Festival for Children and Young People
International kids’ and youngsters’ film event, featuring films lasting less than 10 minutes, made by people under 16 years of age. http://www.videotivoli.fi/english09/index.htm

KENYA

Lola Kenya Screen
Lola Kenya Screen is an annual international audiovisual media movement that seeks to place production tools in the hands of children and youth for the advancement of literacy, gender equity, self expression, and democracy in their world.  http://www.lolakenyascreen.org/

KOREA

Seoul International Youth Film Festival
With week long film camp for 100 kids from around the world aged 13-18 that culminates with the festival featuring their films and films made by youth all over the world.  http://www.siyff.com/

LEBANON

Jana International Film Festival for Youth
A touring festival of Al-Jana, Arab Resource Center for the Popular Arts based in Lebanon, that promotes film made by and for youth, with an emphasis on youth-produced works.
http://www.al-jana.org/programs/ArtMediaFilms.htm

THE NETHERLANDS

CineKid Festival
Large international festival highlighting professional feature films made for children and youth between the ages of 4-14, international children’s and youth documentaries, TV productions, and new media. http://www.cinekid.nl

NORWAY

Nordic International Youth Film Festival
For young people between 15 and 25 years old. During festival they conduct workshops to teach young people how to make films.
http://www.nuff.no

PAKISTAN

Lahore International Children’s Film Festival
An annual event to showcase local and international cinema by and for children in Pakistan. The festival screen films from international and local film makers for Pakistani children, promotes children as film makers, while training them in the art of film making and exhibiting their work in the festival, and nurtures local film makers to produce films to children in Pakistan. The festival has two categories, one for youth under the age of 18 and one for other filmmakers making films for children. http://www.lahorechildrenfilm.com/

RUSSIA

St. Petersburg International Youth Film Festival
The festival is founded by ‘Insight In’ art-centre with the support of Ministry for Youth Policy of Russian Federation, Government of St. Petersburg and St. Petersburg State University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics, for filmmakers under 29 years of age, with an anti racist message. http://www.iyfest.org/e_news.html 

SWITZERLAND

Castellinaria International Youth Film Festival
Features and shorts competition for children and young people 7 to 21 years old.  http://www.castellinaria.ch/

U.K. and Ireland

Breeze International Youth Film Festival (Leeds)
In addition to films, this two week-long festival includes performances, live music, master classes, and a radio show for youth in Leeds, England.
http://www.breezeleeds.org/pg/6/About_the_festival

Cinemagic Film and Television Festival for Young People
Industry-geared film festival for UK and Irish filmmakers and actors under 25 with programming around skills building. http://www.cinemagic.org.uk/ 

Fresh Film Festival (Limerick)
National competition for Irish youth aged 6-17, and includes a 60 second category.  http://www.freshfilmfestival.net/about.html

Showcomotion Young People’s Film Festival (Sheffield)
Children and young people 2-19; films made by children and young people, films made for children and young people, shorts, animation, UNICEF UK AWARDS: films on the theme of young people’s rights; also organizes children’s media industry conference. http://www.showcomotion.org.uk/

UNITED STATES

All Youth Film and Education Day (Sacramento, CA)
A festival of the youth media organization Tower of Youth, based in Sacramento, California. The event is combined with youth education day and features films made by youth between the ages of 13 and 20 only in Canada and the U.S.  http://www.towerofyouth.org/

Cinemakids (Austin, TX)
Organized by the Radio, Television, and Film Department at UT Austin, this is an annual 2 day event that brings together youth filmmakers under the age of 18 for screenings and production workshops.
http://rtf.utexas.edu/cinemakids/

Cine Youth Festival (Chicago, IL)
Produced by the group that puts on the Chicago International Film Festival and Cinema / Chicago, this festival features youth-made films from around the country for those under 20 years of age.
http://www.chicagofilmfestival.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/CIFFSite.woa/wa/pages/Cine%20Youth%20Festival

Docu-Jam (NY, NY)
Held in conjunction with the Museum of Television & Radio’s “Television Documentary Festival,” Docu-Jam is a 2-hour screening of documentaries made by youth from across the country. Organized by the the Downtown Community Television organization (DCTV) based in NYC.
http://www.dctvny.org/PROGRAMS/protv/docujam_2008.html

Do It Your Damn Self!! Youth Film and Video Festival (Cambridge, MA)
Organized and curated by youth at the Cambridge Community Art Center, this is a youth media film festival showing work of filmmakers under the age of 19 from across the country.  http://www.diyds.org/

 Echo Park Film Center Youth Film Festival (Los Angles, CA)Festival featuring videos made by youth in the Echo Park Film Center youth media programs as well as youth from around the globe.
http://www.echoparkfilmcenter.org/festivals/youth-film-fest.htm

 kidsfilmfest (Brooklyn, NY) 
A festival that spawned from the Brooklyn International Film that showcases and promotes films for an audience of youth and children. http://www.kidsfilmfest.org

Reel Teens Film Festival (Woodstock, NY)
The festival of the Reel Teens Media Project, which teaches film and video skills to teenagers. The festival is for teens only, and there are cash awards in 8 categories, trophies, DVD of winning entries and a traveling festival of the winning entries. http://reelteensusa.com/home.htm

Tribeca Film Festival (NY, NY)
Tribeca provides a space for youth filmmakers in their “Urban Vision” program. A collection of youth-made films are screened throughout the year. http://www.tribecafilminstitute.org/youth/screening_series/

Youth Media Program of the Hampton’s International Film Festival (Hampton, NY)
This program of youth films is part of the Hampton’s International Film Festival. They have a created a “Golden Starfish” award, their top honor, for youth filmmakers & cash award. Organized in collaboration with Children’s Media Project. http://www.childrensmediaproject.org/

China spotlights youth voices

From Li Liu, UNICEF China:

 

This year, the China Central Television Children’s Channel produced a 30-min TV special for ICDB on the theme “Listen to me, Papa and Mama”. Nearly 100 Chinese children aged 7-14 were invited to participate in the programme, where they drew pictures with their own messages for their parents. The programme promoted children’s right to expression and explored effective communication between children and their parents.

 

China Radio International produced a 31-min special radio documentary entitled “Growing Up in China” to mark ICDB this year. The programme tells three stories featuring children of migrant workers, children living in urban areas and those in poor rural areas. Interviews were made with those children with different socio-economic backgrounds speaking about their own concerns and aspirations.

 

Radio Beijing produced a 23-min special programme called “Growing Up in Disaster” documenting the voices of children affected by the Sichuan earthquake as well as the messages from children living in other regions of China who conveyed their care and compassion to their peers living in the disaster zones. The programme also drew attention to the protection of children from disasters and emergencies. It was broadcast through Radio Beijing and other regional radio stations in China including those based in Sichuan.

 

In Bihar, 100 Children on the Air

From Aditya Malaviya, UNICEF India:

For the ICDB, the UNICEF Office for Bihar got together almost 100 children from various schools in the flood-affected district of Saharsa in North Bihar to record their voices for broadcast.

As part of International Children’s Day of Broadcasting, the children’s programme focused on aspects like what do children (and young people) care about most, what are their fears and dreams, and how do they perceive the floods – and the aftermath destruction of life and property- that afflict these areas with sickening regularity.

UNICEF, with the help of Supramental, an agency specializing in developing radio programmes, together designed the format and content of the recording, before traveling to the field for recording. The recording took a whole day, and while we had requested the education section in UNICEF for 20-25 children, actually almost 100 turned up once the news of the recording spread!

Call for entries for the 2009 ICDB Awards in TV and Radio!

Every year, UNICEF awards broadcasters in television and radio with the best programming that reflects the International Children’s Day of Broadcasting theme, and who also demonstrates an overall dedication to youth-participation in media. This year’s theme, Unite for Children – Tune in to Kids, opened up possibilities for a wide range of programming and activities for broadcasters around the world.

If you participated in this year’s ICDB, we invite you to submit your program to compete for both regional and global recognition.  Please visit http://www.unicef.org/videoaudio/video_18112.html for application materials, and to view examples of last year’s winners, including Ghana’s Curious Minds Radio Program, and China Central Television’s hour-long documentary, On the Way.  The deadline to submit to the UNICEF office in your region is 15 June 2009. We are excited to see your work!

Youth Media Guyana takes on ICDB

From Andrea Bryan, President, Youth Media Guyana:

Through collaboration with UNICEF for the second year, Youth Media Guyana produced a series of programming for ICDB . We are a youth led media group with a focus on fostering youth expression. This year, we prepared a 30 minute television and radio programme which will examine the dreams and concerns of children and young people with an emphasis on listening to them.

The documentary also tells the stories of a poor boy who works to provide for his family with dreams of owning his own business one day, a young man looks to agriculture as his way out of delinquency, boys who are left behind in schools, the talents of three girls – a fashion designer, an artist and a singer.

The broadcasters that participated were NCN (State Media) and 5 other local television stations.

Uganda tallies 77 stations

An update from Michael Wangusa (see previous post here)

By Friday, 27 February 2009 the number of broadcasting stations that had confirmed participation in the ICDB 2009 in Uganda had risen to 77 as per the attached list. We were able to have such big number this year because in November and December 2008 we had 5 regional one day ICDB sensitization workshops in Uganda each attended by two representatives from an average of 20 broadcasting stations per region.

The representatives included programme managers, producers and presenters of children’s programmes. We sensitized them about the ICDB and the role of the broadcasting media in promoting child rights. We ensured that stations that had participated in previous ICDBs in Uganda, which we began to organise in Uganda in 2004, accumulative number of about 30 stations, participated in the workshops to share their experiences with the new participating stations.

Senegalese youth take to the air

From Rouxanna Lokhat, UNICEF Senegal:

In Rufique, a neighbourhood in outskirts of Dakar, young people joined forces to celebrate this year’s International Children’s day of Broadcasting. Young voices flooded radio stations with their message of non-violence. For over one month organizers and youth worked side by side to prepare a live open-air community broadcast which aired on both community and national radio stations in Senegal. UNICEF in partnership with Plan International’s Radio Gunéyii and local radio stations including Jokkoo FM showcased young talent and the power of child participation. Violence against children was the theme selected for this year’s ICDB in Senegal.

In the live community broadcast young people spoke out against different forms of violence against children in Senegal – including violence at school and the increase in incidents of rape. Junior journalists held live interviews with professionals working in the area of child protection to ask tough questions about what must be done to protect children in Senegal. The ICDB made it possible for over 25 young people, speaking in French and local languages, to perform interviews, sketches, poems, and songs that were heard live across Senegal.

Kolkata kids mark ICDB

From Anil Gulati, UNICEF India, West Bengal:

Children were reporting live on radio waves of JuRadio, the community radio station of Jadavpur University, in Kolkata, on Sunday (March 1). The radio station was celebrating International Children’s Day of Broadcasting (ICDB).

IT WAS Sunday (March 1) afternoon and it was children reporting live on radio waves of JuRadio, the community radio station of Jadavpur University, in Kolkata, West Bengal. It was ‘child radio reporters’ who were interacting with other children and community members of Govindpura, near Jodhpur Park, in Kolkata, interviewing them, asking them about their concerns and all was being aired live.

“It was exciting to see not only children, who are trained in radio reporting, but many others from community participating. All of them were excited to hear their own voices live on radio,” adds Abhishek Das, radio jockey of JuRadio. The radio station was celebrating International Children’s Day of Broadcasting (ICDB), which falls on the first Sunday of March.