Celebrating the Adobe Youth Voices Awards Winners

We’re proud to announce the winners of the third annual Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) Awards, a global, online competition inviting students ages 13-19 to use digital media to express their vision for driving positive change in their communities. This year, a record 2,400 students from 50 countries around the world submitted 1,315 projects. Individuals and student teams worked with AYV educators to produce media projects that address a variety of complex social issues, from bullying to body image to climate change.

We’re amazed by all of the powerful work we saw from this extraordinary group of young creatives and are thrilled to share the winners with you. We had a chance to sit down with a few of this year’s winners to find out what this award means to them.

Kennedy Houston, Victim, New York

“There have been many documentaries about bullying. Winning this award will help us get our message across to more people about how damaging bullying can be and how to can overcome it. We want more people to have the strength to push through; that doing so will give you the strength to do whatever you want in life.”

Sayoko Ariga, Love the Diversity, Ohio

“AYV has already created a safe place for me to share my voice with an international audience. Winning an award will help more people see my entry work and hopefully take LGBTQ rights more seriously. I believe that we should all support human rights and love people the way they are.”

AYV Award winners are chosen in seven categories: animation, documentary, photo essay, music video, narrative, poetry and campaign poster. First and second place winners are named in each of the seven categories by diverse panel of judges, educators, student alumni, and Adobe representatives. The public also cast over 200,000 votes to determine the audience winner for each category. AYV Award winners and their affiliated schools and organizations will receive a range of prizes, including donations of Samsung Galaxy Tablets, copies of Adobe CS Production Premium Suite, a 1-year Adobe Creative Cloud membership and a monetary donation to a charity of their choice.

We believe creativity is a critical skill that can positively shape our future leaders. After going through the AYV program, our research shows that 88% of students feel confident about their ability to ideate, collaborate, adapt and express their point of view, and persist through challenges, while 95% believe that creativity is important to their future success. We’re proud to be able to be able to support these students as they work to create positive change in the world.

The 2014 winners are:

Animation

• First Place: Hunger’s Core, Christine Chung, Salwa Majoka, Northview Heights Secondary School, Canada
• Second Place: Train of Life, Tess Denham, San Marino High School, USA
• Audience Award: TechJunk, Sesh Sadasivam, Abhishek Krishna, Inavamsi B. Enaganti, Sri Kumaran Children’s Home – CBSE, India

Documentary

• First Place: Victim, Brandon Charlton, Kennedy Houston, Maysles Documentary Center, USA
• Second Place: International Boulevard, Zoe Yi, Rebecca Dharmapalan, Oakland School for the Arts, USA
• Audience Award: Support, Ziyang Ding, Tianyao Xu, The High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China, China

Music Video

• First Place: Patience, Yvan Gonzalez, Seven Trees Community Center, USA
• Second Place: Let Me Dream, Sebastian Tuma, Tsote Valashiya, Shriyansi Khanal, Immanuel Yeboah, Daniel Mandache, Spotlight, United Kingdom
• Audience Award: Love Mission, Tautvydas Marcinkevicius, Petar Karapenev, Krzysztof Wlodarek, Abdalla Ali, Sude Simsek, Luke Wallace-Esnard, Dikembe Cabey-Lee, Amina Azong, Anya O’Mahony, Sandra Mikosinska, The Lammas School, United Kingdom

Narrative

• First Place: Vanished, Vanessa Fuentes, Alicia Garchitorena, MACLA, USA
• Second Place: Aspaunity, Josh Gutierrez, Lizbeth Cisneros, Denise Panuco, Jesus Gonzalez, Jonathan Carrasco, Mt. Pleasant High School, USA
• Audience Award: Get a Life, Bianca Toderean, Paul Turean, “Alexandru Papiu Ilarian” High School Dej, Romania

Photo Essay

• First Place: Inner Journey, Jihyeon Park, Irvington High School, USA
• Second Place: Little Place on Earth, Agata Mroczek, Fundacja 5Medium, Poland
• Audience Award: Adams’ Peak- a Pilgrimage for Harmony, Prabhashana Meegammana, Dilan Wickramakeerthi, Shilpa Sayura Foundation, Sri Lanka

Poetry

• First Place: Life, Mihai Tiu, Colegiul National “Ecaterina Teodoroiu”, Romania
• Second Place: Destination: Earth!, Joseph Steve Jiménez, Randall Quesada, Casa de la Juventud Mora, Costa Rica
• Audience Award: We are…, Gyanna Adino, Joanah Diala, Randolph Massachusetts, USA

Poster Campaign

• First Place: Love the Diversity, Sayoka Ariga, New Albany High School, USA
• Second Place: Held Back by Stress, Max Stevens, South Carleton High School, Canada
• Audience Award: Be Creative, Abdullah Al-Dahshan, Hashemite University, Jordan

About Adobe Youth Voices
Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) is the Adobe Foundation’s global initiative to ignite Creative Confidence in youth by using digital media to express their views on social issues. Through programs like AYV, and by increasing creativity in education, Adobe believes we will better equip young people to be the problem solvers, critical thinkers and leaders of tomorrow. To learn more about AYV, its point of view on creativity in education and how you can be involved, please visit http://youthvoices.adobe.com/.

Patricia Cogley is Senior Program Manager, Adobe Youth Voices.