GENERAL NOTES ON THE CONTEST:

 

Start: February 24

Entries Due:  March 24

Judging Complete:  April 14

Winners Announced:  April 17

 

Age Categories:

Ages 10-13

Ages 14-18

 

Media Categories:

• English essays (500 words maximum)
• English poems (200 words maximum)
• Photographs (three maximum)
• Videos (2 ½ minutes maximum)
• Illustrations (five maximum)

 

Number of Entries:

 

No more than two entries (all media combined) per contestant.  If a particular category of media has a limit of more than one submission, that category counts as one medium’s submission.  Thus a person who submits the maximum of three photos may also submit in one (just one) other media category (limit of one entry for essays, one for poems, one for videos, or five for illustrations).

 

1. ESSAYS
2. 500 words maximum
3. Limit of one entry per contestant.
4. English language only (other registration/submission materials also should be in English only)
5. Judging criteria:

• English composition (grammar, spelling, style) – 25 percent

The essay must be smoothly written to express experiences accurately and clearly.  Isolated mistakes are not a disqualifier, provided that they do not distract the reader from your story.

• Content – 75 percent. The items below are pointers, not strict guidelines.  Tell your story first and check these guidelines afterward in case you want to revise something.
• Understandable and honest portrayal of experiences.
• Use a young person’s perspective (your perspective): how did YOU see what was happening and how did it affect you?
• Avoid shrinking from stories of sadness, cruelty, or loss if you remember them vividly and they affect how you feel today. Also, if you felt extraordinary senses of happiness or relief, that is fine, too.  We want to know what you felt this past year.
• How do you think your experience, or how you tell your story, is different from what others say in their stories?
• What do you think the world could learn from what you have learned?

 

2. POEMS
3. 200 words maximum
4. Limit of one entry per contestant.
5. Describe whatever you want from the past year, good or bad.
6. Try to bring out some feeling in the reader, something they might not have felt before.
7. Avoid overly flowery words unless they convey something exactly as you want it said.
8. Use rhymes or free verse – your choice.
9. If this is rap, you can try to recite it in the 2 ½ minute video instead or have it simply in writing here. It’s your choice.

 

3. PHOTOGRAPHS
4. Limit of three entries per contestant.
5. Either black and white or color is fine.
6. Try to portray something the viewer has not seen. Anyone with a television has viewed all kinds of destruction in Ukraine.  If you are trying to portray that, do it in a way that you believe has not been done before.  For example:  recently, there was a photo of a car on top of a building.  An explosion had thrown the car up there.  That is an unusual sight, and it caught many people’s attention.
7. You may certainly submit pictures of your family but again, what is different about the photo? If you have a photo of your brother or father going off to war and showing the reactions of the family, that’s more interesting to the viewer than simply a photo of a family.  Judges will not be looking for pain or suffering as they make their selections.  They will, however, be looking for something that stands out from the typical group of photos they examine.

 

4. VIDEOS
5. 2 ½ minute time limit.
6. Limit of one entry per contestant.
7. Music or poetry, or dancing is fine. None of those is required.
8. What is original?
9. How can you explain your experience of the war on video in 2 ½ minutes (150 seconds)? Use your ingenuity.  The judges will be looking for it.
10. Will your video bring excitement, sadness, or empathy from a stranger in New York, Berlin, Jerusalem, or Tokyo?
11. Can viewers tell that this video expresses what a young Ukrainian (not an adult) is feeling?

 

5. ILLUSTRATIONS
6. Limit of three entries per contestant.
7. Black ink or color illustrations are fine.
8. Your illustration may reflect how you felt this past year, either on a single occasion or throughout most of the year.
9. Any emotion you have felt that you want to share with the world is fine to portray in your illustration(s).
10. Look for things that you saw or felt that were new to you, and, therefore, might be new to those who look at your illustration(s).
11. Illustrations may be realistic, Impressionistic, or modern art. Your call.

 

 

ELIGIBLE TO APPLY:

 

Any contestant who was a Ukrainian citizen on February 24, 2022, wherever they happen to be living today.

 

Must be a student in elementary, middle, or high school and from 10 to 18 years old on February 24, 2023.

 

Students must name their school, town or city, region, and current country of residence, as well as provide the name of their English teacher, if applicable.

 

Students must have parental permission to submit their entry(ies).  Parental permission includes implied parental consent for the copyright of the material to be owned by the sponsoring organizations (X-Culture and Ukraine-USA Pen Pal Program).

 

[SOME PARENTAL PERMISSION INDICATOR SUPPLIED BY X-CULTURE FOR PARENTS TO SIGN/MARK A CHECKBOX OR WHATEVER]

 

Sponsored by:

 

X-Culture               Ukraine-USA Pen

Pal Program

 

 

SUR-PRIZES

 

Ten prizes are being formulated by the contest committee.  Apart from any material prizes that may awarded, there is recognition, which will be considerable.

 

• The chief prize is to have given testimony to what Ukraine and its young people have experienced since the Russian invasion.
• Prize winners also will receive plaques commemorating their success.
• Many, if not all, entries may be available in electronic form after the contest.
• Prize winners’ work will be exhibited internationally on social media and will be made available to major media outlets.
• As noted above, “SUR-PRIZES” will also be awarded to the first prize winner in each of the 10 categories (two age categories x five media categories = 10 total prize categories).

 

Prizes will be given to each of two age categories (10-13 and 14-18 years).  These are the prizes and honorable mentions:

 

First prize

Second prize

Third prize

Honorable mention (5 essays)

 

 

The categories, once again, are:  1) essays, 2) poems, 3) photos, 4) videos, and 5) illustrations.

 

This means, for example, that there will be 10 first prizes:  one for each of the two age categories, for a total of two, times the five media categories, for a combined total of 10.

 

 

 

 

 

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NOTES FOR US

 

Application information (rules, click-throughs to application form and form on which to type the essay, etc.) distributed to:

 

Vas’s Facebook group

Shares by Vas’s Facebook friends

Pen Pal Program Teachers and Participants (Ukrainians)

Other groups as we encounter them

 

 

WHO DOES WHAT

 

Landing page with button, etc. from X-Culture

 

Automatic collection of essays by X-Culture

 

Distribution of essays to judges by X-Culture

 

Evaluation of judging processes by Tom Robinson

 

Ukraine-USA Pen Pal Program (Chris Mead) will assist wherever he is needed in the above tasks, including encouraging the roughly 50 teachers in the Pen Pal Program to ask many of their students to apply.