Published on:
26
April 2012
Five young people will represent Clackmannanshire in a national competition aimed at educating children about the dangers of carrying knives and the devastating consequences they can have.
Entitled "No Knives, Better Lives", young people from the county have produced a two minute video and story board which will be reviewed by a panel of experts and put on the Scottish Youth Parliament website for an online vote which opens on 30th April and closes on 14th May.
The top three online winners will then go to a judging panel, who will decide the top three places.
The winning team will each receive a video camera, lap top and a day with a film company. The runners-up will each be presented with a lap top and the third placed team will each pick up a video camera.
Clackmannanshire Council Youth Services have worked with the young people from Clackmannan Youth Project to take part in a training production day at Hampden Park, Glasgow, in preparation to making their videos for judging. The five school children who will represent the county are all first year pupils from Lornshill Academy.
Head of Education, Belinda Greer said: "No Knives, Better Lives is also about giving young people good reason to feel that carrying a knife is not worth the risks or consequences, and helps to shape positive attitudes, influencing life choices by promoting diversionary activities."
We-CTV is a project created by the Scottish Youth Parliament to engage young people in the issue. It represents the opposite of CCTV.
The Scottish Youth Parliament worked with the Scottish Government's Community Safety Unit to deliver We-CTV in 2010 and the videos they created have now been viewed over 20,000 times. They can be found at www.noknivesbetterlives.com
We-CTV received outstanding feedback from all stakeholders and has now been revised to provide a new national programme for 2012, with regional heats and a national competition including the winners of the regional phase.
This year's competition was opened to all schools and community groups in Clackmannanshire with young people aged 11-16 to show us how they would communicate an anti-knife crime message to their peers.
The winners will be announced at a plush event on the 31st May at Oran Mor in Glasgow, where all the videos will be shown and the national winners announced.
Please vote for "Adele's Story" on www.syp.org.uk. The online voting begins this Monday, 30th April until 14th May.