Global Peace and Sustainable Development Contests
Artistic and Creative Composition
Period: 1 January – 31 March 2024
There are two broad themes to choose from:
a) Constructing Peace to overcome a Culture of Fear, Pandemic and War
b) Innovation in STEM for Climate Change and Sustainable Development
| Link to Word file | Link to pdf file | Link to Word file |
| Primary or elementary | Word | |
| Middle or High School | Word | |
| Up to 30 years of Age | Word |
Please select the relevant files for your age group. After the competitions the list of winners and highly commended works will be posted on this page.
3 modalities for both Peace and STEM:
a) Art (First place prize USD 100)
b) Written composition (First place prize USD 100)
c) Music (No financial prize)
Background
Reflecting on the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, wars, famine, health, social problems, climate change, and other challenges that people face, please suggest some solutions. Please reflect on the words of Gandhi to be the change you want to see in the world.
We will accept creative projects on any subject. Entries will be asked to categorize their primary subject. Be creative, and also logical. For example, if you intend to provide educational materials you might include more description of the situation, not just situation analysis, whereas if you are arguing for policy change, or stopping war, you might focus on arguments.
We ask entries not to contain specific abusive comments against any named individual or group of persons unless you are describing actual legal decisions. For example, If you are a victim of discrimination or war by another group or country you can mention the country, and be factual or use real cases. For example, we would red flag for editing prose with a comment that says “X is a Nazi”, but you could say, “Hitler was a Nazi”, or include a factual photograph of a demonstration that may include some personal attacks made by others that is relevant to the point that you are making. Similarly, you could say, “XXX Corporation was found guilty by the District Court of xxx for discharges of effluent that contained excess levels of lead (Pb) on a specific date”, or “South Africa submitted an indictment accusing xxx of xxx to the International Criminal Court on 29 December 2023.”
You will retain the copyright for your creative works. In case your work includes photographs of persons please inform us whether you have permission from someone to include that person’s image. We understand that in some conflict zones, it is not always possible, so please do not self-censor. There are no restrictions on the date that photographs were taken but do write the name of the photographer and state the date.
We are neutral and not affiliated to any one religion, political view, or nation. This is organized by Youth’s UNESCO Club (USA), American University of Sovereign Nations (USA); Eubios Ethics Institute (New Zealand and Japan); and Youth Peace Ambassadors International (YPA), in cooperation with other partners.
We ask you to inform us of your age, and whether you would agree to your name and location being associated with a display or publication of your works (as stated in the registration form to accompany your entry). In case you are a professional. please mention that also. If you use AI or computer-assisted writing or art please mention that, and if we receive sufficient entries we may decide to judge them in a separate subcategory.
In case we think that there may be some security concerns for you, we may also ask you to confirm the listing of your name, and discuss. Your correspondence will be treated as confidential, and it will not be any disadvantage in the competition to request that the work be anonymous.
The initial exhibition of work will be at the UNESCO Youth Peace Ambassador Workshop (YPA18): Constructing Peace to Overcome a Culture of Fear, Pandemic, and War, in Tarzana, Los Angeles, USA, 4-9 April 2024. The works will include persons from many conflict zones such as Palestine, Israel, Ukraine, Sudan, DRC, Myanmar, and so on, as well as works from many fragile environments and sites of disasters, and persons from many places and spaces on our planet. Your art, prose, music, and/or other creative works will be judged if you enter the competition. A global panel of judges will also give feedback.
Who can apply ?
While this competition has an age limit, we are open under a general call to work by all persons of any age anywhere. Also, the UNESCO YPA Ambassador program is open to you if you define yourself as youth.
We will gather physical entries from some locations in the world to bring them together, please inform us. We will ask some of our friends and participants to bring art or prose (e.g. calligraphy) on paper to Los Angeles or provide a mailing address. We will not take legal responsibility for any damage to submitted art, but we will humanly do our best to protect it and treat it with deep respect. We may be able to print some artwork on-site after submission via Email or WhatsApp.
Entrance fee
The cost of entry to the competition is USD 15 (if you can afford it). To avoid administrative costs local focal points will be available, and details will be provided to you by the secretariat. If you cannot reasonably pay the entry fee of $15, you may still submit your work and apply for a waiver, but will not be eligible to receive a financial prize (First prize for Art and for Composition for each of the Peace and STEM competitions in each age category is $200 USD).
If you register for the conference you will be given a waiver of the entry fee for this competition.
There is no additional cost for the exhibition. In case 2-D or 3-D printing is requested we will provide a quote before proceeding, and will generally print materials on US Letter size paper.
Secretariat for all Competitions: Dr. Suma Parahakanan Email: ypaevaluation@gmail.com
This page will be updated to include some of the submitted works after judging.