What do a Liberian rapper, an Indian journalism graduate and a young Angolan author have in common?
They are all winners of a global contest that encourages young creatives to imagine the kind of democracy they would like to live in.
Hosted by global civil society alliance, CIVICUS, under the theme, “Re-imagining Democracy: In Search of Silenced Voices”, the Through Arts and Imagination creative arts competition was organised to celebrate International Youth Day on August 12. The aim was to encourage young creative artists to share their vision of what democracy should be and to raise the silenced voices of youth globally.
Contestants submitted entries in three creative arts categories: written arts, which included poems, short stories and essays of 500 words or less; visual arts, which included drawings, paintings, cartoons and photography; and multimedia arts, which included short films of no longer than 2 minutes and songs. Creators had to be under 30 years old to enter.
Prizes for the winners, whose submissions included a song, a poem and a cartoon, include a USD300 cash prize to be donated to a social change organisation of their choice.
Music artist, Amaze, wowed judges with his song promoting voter awareness in his native Liberia, entitled “Know Who To Vote For”.
“I feel democracy should be everybody business,” said Amaze.
“My inspiration was to educate voters to vote right and not base on ethnicity, scholarships, or religious background,” said Amaze.
He was one of 15 finalists and was selected for the best multimedia arts entry from among dozens of entries from across the globe by a panel of judges and almost 1,500 online voters worldwide.
Amaze, whose name is Henry Amazin Toe, started his music career at age 14 in Guinea and is currently a hipco Accountability Ambassador who mentors other underground artists to create music for social change. Hipco is a genre of dance music that blends hip-hop, R&B and traditional Liberian music with lyrics in colloquial dialects spoken in Liberia.
The contest’s the visual arts category winner, Vandita Sariya from India, came out tops for a cartoon, entitled “One” that she says was inspired by a surge in intolerance in society where she lives.
“A wave of pseudo-nationalism is going on in my country, India and people are judging and even killing others for who they are, what they look like, what they eat and what their beliefs are,” said Sariya.
Sariya, who says she plans to donate her prize money to towards children’s education and nourishment, is an emerging creative artist who has been practicing her craft for just six months.
A poem by Angolan author, Cláudia Cassoma – encouraging youth to see themselves as the “master key” to all the solutions they seek – was chosen as the winner of the written arts category.
Cassoma, who has had four books published, says the poem, entitled Chave Mestra" (Portuguese for master key), was inspired by a common attitude she encounters among young people in her country, Angola and globally.
“Today, one thing I hear a lot are complaints by youth about the million things that are wrong with the world while they themselves are doing nothing. Usually, that's the case because they feel they can't do anything,” Cassoma said.
“The piece is a message for youth to reimagine democracy by seeing themselves as the master key, the key to solve any if not all issues we face,” she said.
Said Elisa Novoa, CIVICUS Youth Working Group coordinator: “The aim of this contest was to give a space for young people to express a vision for the kind of democracy they desire. It was also an opportunity to mobilise young creative minds from every corner of the globe, offering a platform to amplify their messages related to the respect of democratic values and social justice.”
“In a world where information is shared with so much hate, discrimination and stigmatisation, we want to enable arts to be a tool to share messages of hope, justice and equality,” said Novoa.
The winning entries will also be featured in CIVICUS’ State of Civil Society Report 2018, to be released in September 2018.
ENDS.
For more information, contact:
Grant Clark
CIVICUS Communications team