Youth voices are a powerful catalyst for change and we wanted to give them the opportunity to share their insight on how they felt about youth violence. After months of planning with our community partners, on March 26th, 2012 we launched the Express Yourself Media Arts Contest for youth aged 12-24.
We challenged Peel youth to use poetry, song, art, photography or video to answer one of our questions:
We received over 60 entries, with 100 youth participants that shared how they felt about school violence, cyber bullying, gang violence, bullying and dating violence.
On May 11th, 2012 youth and parents gathered at the Rose Theatre for a showcase event where we featured all the submissions and announced the contest winners.
A Mind in Distress
Artist: Thomas Aucoin
Fingerprinted
Artist: Khansa Ashra
The 18th Cure
Artists: Celena Ingram, Ernell Favours, Brittany Engson, Deja Brown, Edison Philip, Galata Diro, Michael Smith, Devin Hakim, Myles Watson, Celeste Bianca, Oliden Herrera, Matthew Cirillo, Daljeet Cheema, Thomas Schubert, Damilola Faseyi and Nicholas Olchonmina
Break Violence
Artists: Marcelino DaCosta, Christian Mohammed, Ali Muhammad, Colin Young, Daniel Gallo, Shazad Omarali, Austin Le, Tony Hoang and Zaiire Avadu