CALLING ALL YOUNG PEOPLE AGED 10 - 24!

Do you want to have your voice heard whilst building your CV?

This YOUTH PUBLISHING COMPETITION is run by The Platform Project, and is fully funded by the #iWill fund. The goal of the project is to provide young people in and around Swindon and Wiltshire with an outlet to express their views on a range of youth social action topics by producing a range of multi-media content that will be judged by a panel of local professionals.

The competition is open to any young people aged 10 to 24, and we will actively be engaging with schools and youth groups to try and encourage participation. The qualifying content will be published on our youth issues blog www.iDare.blog and the shortlisted content will be included in a special edition PRINTED version of the #iDare youth magazine. A panel of industry experts will judge the shortlisted entries and an awards night will be held to announce the winners at the end of the project.

To enter the competition, register your interest HERE by answering a few questions and register your email address to be kept up to date on all announcements.

PLEASE NOTE – entries can be made by young people aged 10 to 24, but parental permission is required for anyone under 18, so a parents email will also be required. If you're in education, we also recommend you get a teacher to ‘sponsor’ your entry, to support you and review your content. However, this is not mandatory, so if you are unable to find a teacher sponsor, you can still make an independent entry.

Register your interest by filling out this form:

FINAL SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 1st January 2024 @ 5pm

INFORMATION SHEETS

We want to publish as much of your content as possible but have certain requirements that will help us do so within the tight timescales for the judging process. Please help us accept your entry by reading all the below requirements thoroughly before submitting your piece:

For ALL content being submitted:

1) AGES: This publishing competition is for young people aged 10 to 24 years old. It is a funded project to promote youth social action, so please accept our apologies if you fall outside of these criteria – it is a condition of our funding.

2) SUBMISSION FORM: All content being submitted must be accompanied by a submission form that tells us who you are and that the content has been produced by you.

3) DEADLINE: All content must be submitted by the submission deadline, which is no later than 5pm on Monday 1^st January.

4) THEME: All content should be focusing on youth social issues and written in a way that can be published regionally. However, if any content or language is deemed to be offensive, insensitive, or inappropriate we withhold the right to refuse to accept your submission.

Written Articles

5) WORD COUNT: If you are producing a written article, it should be a maximum of 500 words and saved on a Microsoft Word document (not PDF) with your subheadings and images included. This is so that we can cut and paste your content onto our blog to publish electronically online.

6) PAGE DESIGN: If you would like your written article to also be printed in the special edition magazine (printed hard copy, rather than just online) then you must ALSO in addition to your word document provide us with a visually designed magazine page / pages (using a free design tool like Canva). The pages are A5 in size and must include a 1cm margin around the outside of each page to avoid any of your content being cut off in the print run. You can use images and colour, but the maximum length when designed is four A5 pages / two double pages. Please ensure that your font size is readable, and you are using images that are not Copyright protected. If any of these requirements are not met, we may not be able to print your article.

7) NAME: Please ensure that you add your first name and age on your articles – please do not include your full name / surname for online safety reasons.

8) PROOFREAD: We recommend that you ask someone to proofread your article to help identify any typos or grammatical errors that can be fixed before you submit your entry.

Videos & Podcasts

9) DURATION: If you are producing your content as a video or podcast, please ensure that the length is no longer than 15 minutes.

10) NAME: If you introduce yourself or anyone else under the age of 18 in your video or podcast, please ensure that you only mention your first name and age – please do not include your full name / surname for online safety reasons.

11) PERMISSIONS: If submitting video content, you must indicate on the submission form that you have received signed permission / release forms from anyone other than yourself who is featured in the video (signatures must be from an adult aged 18 or over if anyone in the video is under 18). You can find a template ‘Release Form’ on our webpage that you can use to get these signatures / permissions – you do not need to send use these with your submission but please keep the copies yourself in case anything is queried. Please note – if content appears to have been recorded without peoples knowledge, we will not be able to accept your submission.

12) COPYRIGHT: If submitting video or podcast content, you must indicate on the submission form that you have the right to use any audio tracks included in your content, so please note that you usually cannot use any mainstream music as YouTube will block your content due to Copyright issues. You can however use free unlicensed music from a number of different sites – just Google ‘Free Creative Commons Music’.

Other Media

OTHER MEDIA: We would love to receive other creative media, so please feel free to send us things like songs, poems, animations, cartoon panels, photo montages or anything else you can think of that helps highlight youth social issues in a creative way. If you are unsure, you can always email is on publishing@PlatformProject.co.uk to check if we can accept your entry. 😊

For more information on how we help young people via ‘The Platform Project’ click here.