By Vibhuti Vasudev
Youth for Sustainability Dialogues is a platform for Youth leaders across the world to exchange their thoughts, examine challenges in their local environment with the Sustainable Development Goals ‘SDGs’ as a common thread. The youth are given an opportunity to showcase their projects and initiatives and come together as a youth movement that is truly ‘Glocal’ towards the achievement of SDGs as defined by the UN. The past session focused on creating Inclusive Spaces for Quality Education and Promoting innovation in Learning.
Y4SD organized the SDG SHUTTERBUG PHOTO COMPETITION on 15th January, 2021. The platform was set for the youth to display their talent and creativity towards solving local community challenges on the theme of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, thus expressing a story of sustainable change “in less than three frames”.
The expert for the session was Kasha Seqouia Slavner, Founder – The Global Sunrise Project, Award Winning Documentary Filmmaker, and Diana Award Holder. The session was moderated by Ketaki Mathur, Associate Programme Manager, CDF. The jury members consisted of Swetlana Kosenko (MasterPeace Denmark), Fouad Kargbo (Human Rights Advocate, Documentary Filmmaker, MasterPeace Sierra Leone), Olena Zinchenko (Head of the Centre of Cultural & Social Innovations, MasterPeace Kiev) and Gabriela Cabrera (Communications, MasterPeace Kitu Ecuador). Finally, the session had the 25 shortlisted participants of the SDG Shutterbug Photo Competition along with the general audience.
The session commenced with warm greetings and introduction by Ketaki, followed by Swetlana, who described the grading scheme for the competition. This was followed by the announcement of the winners of the 13-19 age category by Gabriela. Tsemko Elizaveta Aleksandrovna (Russia), Anushka Mishra (India) and Connecting Dreams Foundation Shivaji College Chapter (India) were the winners of the first age category. Next came the announcement of 20-30 age category’s winners by Elena. Dyutiman-The Literary Society (India), Simran Puri (India), and Connecting Dreams Foundation ARSD Chapter (India) were declared the winners of the second age category. The entries were inspired by transportation problems, problems in providing quality education to children in some areas, welfare of birds in challenging terrains, creation of a sustainable nation, etc. The winners would be getting a Masterclass from talented photographers, Vaibhav Tekchandani and Avishek Manna. The jury members then shared their perspectives on storytelling and photography for change. Skills such as problem-solving, communication, creative thinking, and in-depth reasoning are needed to capture the essence in a photograph, along with a vision, as propounded by the panelists. Sudeepta Dawn, an expert photographer, too shared his thoughts about photography minutely as a field. Finally, Ms. Kasha shared her experience of storytelling through photography. She has worked on creative activism for social good by selling cards of kindness, and was inspired by stories of women. Her Global Sunrise Project focuses on harnessing power of solution-oriented storytelling and filmmaking. She also shared some of her most favourite photographs, each of which depicted a beautiful story behind them.
The session concluded with a vote of thanks to the attendees by the moderator.
