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Entries open for Young Community Shaper Awards

2 Apr 2012

The Young Community Shaper Awards are open for entries by students, between 16-25 years, who are at a school or college and who run a community project that benefits their community. Sponsored by the Independent Cash & Carry Group and Shift, the SABC1 programme, the competition promotes excellence and the culture of learning.

Sanet Yelland of Streamline Advertising says, "The annual awards identify, acknowledge and celebrate students that are actively involved in developing, building and empowering their communities. Acknowledging young community shapers and ploughing funds into their projects, helps the entire community.

"The awards offer the youth an opportunity to highlight their projects. By adopting these projects, we and the sponsors are able to provide training, facilities, guidance, and grow the projects into sustainable community projects that will benefit all.

"Contribute, communicate, engage and respond"

"Our community youth leader must contribute, communicate, engage and respond to the community's needs in a meaningful way. He or she must work in partnership with other sectors to the benefit of the community. This is a compulsory category. Community projects could cover sport, AIDS counselling, drama, art, science, feeding schemes, caring for the sick and elderly, nursing, keeping youth from doing crime and drug counselling. The project also has two sub categories - Social Upliftment and Skills Transfer," says Yelland.

Shift, screened live on SABC1 Mondays and Tuesdays, is the media partner for the awards and will share information about the awards over the next few weeks and film the final event.

Prizes

Entries close on 14 May 2012 and final judging takes place on 25 June. Prizes include R60 000 cash for first winner's project, R30 000 cash for second place and other finalists receive R10 000 for their projects.

Surekha Singh, commissioning editor in SABC Education's public information and social development unit says, "This is a premier youth upliftment project in South Africa and we are proud and excited about this partnership because the programme speaks to young people who take the initiative in the spirit of Ubuntu and help their communities by giving them hope and inspiration. The programme is about shifting the mindsets of the youth to do things for themselves, so these awards are really important to recognise young community shapers."

For more, go to www.sabceducation.co.za.