Calling high school students – $500 prize up for grabs in Youth voices COVID-19 video competition

02 Sep, 2021, 2:03 pm02 Sep, 2021, 2:03 pm Sarah Mason

Photo taken at Nepean Creative and Performing Arts High School prior to COID-19 restrictions.

COVID-19 continues to impact all of our lives but is particularly worrying for young people.

Adolescents are more connected to media and social media than any other age group and often find it hard to make sense of the COVID-19 messages that they’re exposed to.

The Prevention Education and Research Unit (PERU) in partnership with the School of Population Health UNSW, are running the Youth Voices COVID-19 Video Competition for high school students in western Sydney.

This competition was developed after conversations with schools about the difficulty in running external workshops for students during lockdown, and the need for innovative strategies to both disseminate COVID-19 health and wellbeing information, and encourage student engagement, leadership and voice.

Students are invited to submit a short video addressing one of three topic areas:

COVID-19 Vaccinations: encouraging people to protect themselves
Looking after your wellbeing during the pandemic
Tackling COVID-19 misinformation and myths

Prizes for the winning entries have been generously donated by Australian Medical Association NSW, and the Blacktown and Hills Medical Practitioners Associations.

“We want to encourage our students to participate, so we have a special prize of a water filling station for the school that has the most entries,” Professor Smita Shah, Director of PERU said.

The competition is key to ensuring that adolescents are supported, acknowledged and empowered to have a voice in this pandemic.