Students to tackle discrimination in video competition

17 February 2014

Students encouraged to tackle discrimination in video competition

Words hurt – we know this, but what can we do about it? The Mental Health Foundation believes that young people have the power to influence their peers, and change their behaviour and word choices for the better.

The Mental Health Foundation is holding a competition for secondary school students to create a video that encourages young people to stop and think when they hear or use words like “nutjob”, “retard”, “schizo”, or “mental”, and reflect on language that is stigmatising or discriminatory.

Through consultation with young people, we have learned that they are overwhelmingly in favour of a campaign that discourages the use of cruel and hurtful words associated with mental distress, and their ideal resource to tackle such an issue is a YouTube video that communicates directly with them to inspire behaviour change.

So, who better to create this campaign than young people themselves?

The competition is open to all secondary school students, but could be the product of a formative exercise for media production standards 2.6 and 3.6, for which we will provide a teaching unit plan. The project must be submitted by 20 June 2014.

The objectives of this competition are:
• to provide students with useful insights into social marketing that encourages positive behavioural change;
• to support students to develop their own ideas to help curtail bullying;
• and to participate in mental health promotion; to generate a high-quality resource we can use in a viral marketing campaign.

Competition judges and prizes will be confirmed shortly.

For more information about the project, see our information leaflet (PDF).

The Mental Health Foundation is seeking expressions of interest from teachers for this project.

For information about the competition, or to register your interest, please contact: Ivan Yeo: ivan@mentalhealth.org.nz

ENDS

© Scoop Media