Jamaica Youth Theatre wins Global Video Challenge
Jamaica Youth Theatre (JYT) has won a worldwide video challenge aimed at preventing violence against women.
News of the triumph came yesterday from Global Dialogues, a United Kingdom-registered charity that says it promotes “global public health and societal well-being through integrated, youth-driven solutions fuelled by creativity and multidisciplinary partnership”.
The JYT’s winning short film, titled Stop Violence Against Women, was directed by Akeem Mignott from a concept by Danar Royal and featured Petrina Williams, Brian Johnson, Kellesia Ebanks and Mignott.
Yesterday, Global Dialogues explained that its video challenges “are an innovative, intercreative approach to making short YouTube films on global social issues”.
Essentially, Global Dialogues produces the beginning of a short film and posts it to YouTube after which young people across the world compete by creating and uploading videos that continue and finish the story.
Participants are asked to make videos that reflect their vision of a better world, helping characters in the film to find positive solutions to the problems they face.
Reacting to the JYT’s victory Mignott said the group joins in the chorus of voices calling for an end to the violence that affects an estimated one in three women in her lifetime.
“Violence against women must not be tolerated, in any form, in any context, in any circumstance. There can be no exceptions, no excuses and no delay,” he was quoted in a news release.
Ebanks, in her response, said: “Our participation in this Global Dialogues Video Challenge has stimulated discussion and debates in our local communities on the issue of eliminating violence against women, especially in Jamaica, which may require shifting traditions, attitudes, stereotypes and roles as we know them.”
Jamaica Youth Theatre was founded in 2004 and comprises young people with a burning passion for theatre.
The group says it recruits members from the annual Secondary Schools’ Drama Festival and creates cutting-edge popular theatre targeting young people as a means of social change, with a commitment to using Jamaican indigenous forms and popular culture to engage its audience.
Jamaica Youth Theatre members (from left) Brian Johnson, Kellesia Ebanks, Petrina Williams and Akeem Mignott who won the Global Dialogues Video Challenge. (Story on page 4)
The poster for Jamaica Youth Theatre’s short film, Stop Violence Against Women, which won the Global Dialogues Video Challenge.