Youth use media to raise awareness about cannabis use on youth brain development

Recently, the virtual red carpet was rolled out to celebrate the youth who created the winning submissions for the 6th YMCA Youth 4 Youth (Y4Y) Digital Media Contest.

The contest challenged Canadian youth ages 18 to 24 to create a poster and/or a video that discussed the impact of cannabis use on youth brain development. To make it into the top four, each submission was judged by a panel of contest organizers, a jury of youth ages 15 to 18, a public vote, and a survey of over 400 Canadian secondary school students.

On award day, contestant Sidney Hiemstra was awarded first place for their video, and contestant Mei Ling Phung received first place for their poster. Here is what our first place poster and video winners had to say about the contest:

First-place video: Sidney Hiemstra

Sidney has been creating videos since grade 2 and created the contest’s top-placing . It shows how cannabis use impacts myelination and pruning of a developing youth brain and provides harm reduction strategies.

The highlight of creating my submission was the filming process. I got to hang out with my friends and have a fun time recording and directing them. But a close second highlight would be experimenting with my creativity within Adobe After Effects; Always thinking to myself, what could I do to make this even better!

First-place poster: Mei Ling Phung 

Mei Ling won top prize for their poster that uses colourful and youth friendly visuals to explain the effects of cannabis use on dopamine and brain development of the youth brain. Mei Ling graduated from Seneca College’s Broadcasting Television in 2019 and chose to participate in the contest after seeing an ad for it on Facebook.

I thought it would be a fun experience to try to utilize my design skills and see what happens. I had some trouble dedicating some time to creating the poster and finding the right visual elements, but later things became a lot easier than I imagined, and it was a very valuable multi-step learning process.

If you would like to view our other top video and poster submissions, you can visit our YCAP-Y4Y 2022 Winners contest page. Here is what our other top poster and video contenders had to say about their experience participating in the contest:

“During the process, I had the opportunity to learn more about ways to raise awareness for things like, but not limited to, youth cannabis safety. I was able to reflect on and explore more of how to make such a topic relevant and relational to the target audience, and in doing so, connect to them more effectively.” – Amanda Zhang

“I’ve always heard that consuming cannabis can have negative effects on young people, but this contest gave me the opportunity to research and find out why and how cannabis affects the brain. The most enjoyable part of the contest for me was planning and editing the video. I love creating animations with images and text and combining those with narrations and music.” – Mark Kravchenko

“The inspiration behind our poster was seeing more and more youth turning to cannabis as a coping mechanism without being aware of its significant impact on their brain development. So our idea was to create a media product that would be educational, non-judgemental and prioritized harm reduction.” – Michelle & Javairia

“The most memorable moment of participating in this contest was finding out that I had made it to the forthcoming round of evaluation. It's a bit nerve-wracking to present your work, especially in a setting such as a competition. Naturally, you hope to do well and that viewers understand the content presented in your video, as that is a crucial step in spreading awareness. So, finding out that people took a liking to my video made me feel more confident in my submission.” – Ngozi Udeh

“I used to be a judge in previous years of the contest and I would see the amazing content that so many young adults worked hard to make to help their peers. Monserrat also found this contest to be inspiring. We both knew that once we graduated high school we would try to be a part of it someday.” – The Aces (Saba Marzabadi & Monserrat Solano)

Did you know that the brain is still in the process of developing until the age of 25 and that someone under the age of 25 who uses cannabis is more likely to experience long-term effect than someone over the age of 25? Youth cannabis use has the potential to impact brain development and function in: How dopamine is released in the brain, the brain’s ability to determine which activities provide natural pleasure, and the parts of the brain that control thinking, learning and memory.

To learn more about cannabis use and its impacts on the developing brain, please visit the on our website at https://youthcannabisawareness.ymcagta.org/.