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Youth 4 Youth

Prevention begins with knowledge, educate your peers.

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The Youth for Youth Gambling Education Program (Y4Y) is a provincial education and prevention initiative, funded by the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) that is designed to empower young people to raise awareness on underage gambling, problem gambling and the support resources available. The Y4Y program engages adolescents (aged 15-18) and young adults (aged 19-24) through a gambling education competition.

The Youth for Youth Gambling Education Program is grounded in the following three approaches:

  • Gambling Neutral: We don’t make value judgments regarding gambling rather we see it as an activity people may or may not choose to engage in.
  • Balanced Perspective: Discuss both the positives and negatives of gambling and how they impact our community and self.
  • Harm Reduction Approach: Like many activities we participate in, gambling contains some risk. Gaining accurate knowledge about gambling and learning positive play strategies can help reduce the risk associated with gambling.
Woman teaching kids how to count on fingers

The Youth 4 Youth Digital Media Contest will empower and encourage young adults (aged 18-24) to use their talent and creativity to raise awareness among their peers on the topics of gambling and gaming. Participants will develop a short educational video or poster (or both!) to raise awareness on these topics.

Contest participants are not expected to be an expert on the topic of gambling! Upon registration, they will be provided with resources. Submissions can be in English or French. All submissions will be reviewed by a panel of contest organizers and youth (aged 15-18) to select the Top 5 contestants. The shortlisted finalists will then be voted on by the public, which will assist the Y4Y Team in selecting the Top 3 poster and video submissions. Finally, the Top 3 Submissions will be shown to groups of youth across Ontario, to select the first, second and third place winners.

Prizes

Poster Submission Prizes:

First place: $500 

Second place: $300

Third place: $200

Video Submission Prizes:

First place: $2,000

Second place: $1,250

Third place: $750

Y4Y Award Ceremony

Participants of the Y4Y Digital Media Contest were recognized and celebrated at the annual Y4Y Award Ceremony on the evening of June 11, 2020. The Award Ceremony not only celebrates the accomplishments and hard work of contestants, but also acknowledges the efforts made by community partners, contest organizer jury members and youth jury members. It is an opportunity to bring together and celebrate youth from across the province.

Contest Information

Contest Topics

Technology and the internet have allowed for the development of new types of underage gambling opportunities and have caused the definitions of gambling and gaming to become blurred. The theme of the contest focuses on these unconventional forms of gambling. Contestants must answer one of the following questions in their video or poster submission:

1.    What are loot boxes or mystery chests? How does purchased loot boxes present itself in a way that is similar to gambling? Why is it important that youth know this? 

2.    What is the Freemium Model? How does the Freemium Model present itself in a way that is similar to gambling? Why is it important that youth know this? 
 
3.    Casino style activities/games can be found within video games. How may this blur the lines between gambling and gaming? Why is it important that youth know this?
 
4.    What is E-Sports betting? How does betting on E-Sports, which is a game of skill, blur the lines between gambling and gaming? Why is it important that youth know this?

Submissions must also include a relevant harm reduction strategy and a resource to access for more information or support. 
Rules and Requirements
Contestants are asked to create either a video or poster (or both!) to participate in the Y4Y Digital Media Contest. The poster and video submissions will be evaluated separately and have different requirements. All submissions must use a balanced, neutral and harm reduction focused approach towards gambling and gaming.

To review all of the contest rules, please review the Rules Documents:

Contestant Eligibility:

To be eligible to participate in the contest, contestants must:

-    Be between the ages of 18 and 24 
-    Live in Ontario
-    Have not placed in first, second or third place in previous rounds of the Y4Y Contest
-    Youth are welcome to submit both a poster and a video for consideration!
 
Video Requirements:

-    The video must answer one of the above questions, include a harm reduction strategy and a relevant resource for support or more information.
-    The video can be up to 60 seconds long.
-    All audio and visual materials must be copyright-free or the necessary authorizations must be acquired before using copyrighted materials.
-    The video must not contain coarse language, violence, discriminatory, offense, racist or inappropriate comments, the use of drugs or the promotion of the use of drugs.
-    All actors in the video must consent to participating in the video and be over the age of 18.
-    The format of the video must be .MP4 or .MOV and have a resolution of 720p or 1080p.
-    The video must include Closed Captioning. 

Poster Requirements:

-    The poster must answer one of the above questions, include a harm reduction strategy and a relevant resource.
-    All images or graphics used on the poster must be copyright free.
-    The poster requires 300 DPI and must be in CMYK colour format.
-    The poster must be vertical orientation with the dimensions of 47” W x 68” L. 

Contest organizers reserve the right to refuse, modify or delete a submission that is deemed inappropriate. All posters and videos submitted for the contest will become the property of the Youth for Youth Digital Media Contest. However, the creator of the submission will always be credited.

If you have any questions, please contact the Contest Organizer at y4y@ymcagta.org or 416-928-3362 ext. 22629. 

Registration & Submission Process

Instructions for Registration Process

Registration for Round 3 of the Youth 4 Youth Digital Media Contest will begin on August 1st, 2019. All contestants must register online prior to submitting their video or poster. After registering, contestants will be sent educational material and resources to help them create their submission! The Contest Organizer will also reach out to each contestant after registration to provide support and answer any questions. 

Instructions for Submission Process

Contestants will submit their final project via Google Form. Only one submission is required per team. After submission, contestants will be required to complete an evaluation survey and an exit phone call. The evaluation process of the posters and videos will begin immediately after the submission deadline.  

Surveys and Interviews

Upon final submission, contestants will be required to complete an exit phone call and exit survey. The questions of this survey are designed to evaluate learning and effectiveness of the contest. The evaluation components are led by a third party and participants’ responses will not impact their submission evaluation in any way. The third-party firm will only share information with regard to whether contestants have completed the evaluation component with contest organizers.

If you have questions, please contact the Contest Organizer at y4y@ymcagta.org

Terms & Conditions
The Youth for Youth Education Program reserves the right, in its absolute discretion, to disqualify a video it believes does not respect or potentially not respect one or several of the Y4Y Video Contest official rules.  


The contest organizers reserve the right to modify, suspend or cancel the Contest for any reason, without any prior notice.

These rules may be changed without notice or reason including, if necessary, to comply with any applicable law. By entering this contest, participants agree to abide by these rules and acknowledge that the contest organizers shall not be responsible for any damages, costs, demands, claims or losses of any kind, incurred by any contestant as a result of participation in this contest.


Submission originality:

All content included in the poster or video submission must be original. The submission must not infringe upon or violate any laws or any third-party rights. This includes but is not limited to: copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret or other proprietary rights. Submissions must not lead to any cause of action including libel, defamation, privacy violation, contract breach or tort. The participant must obtain all necessary permissions, licenses, clearances, releases, waivers of moral rights and other approvals from third parties necessary to use the submission, in whole or in part (including but not limited to: all copyright holders and all individuals appearing in the video or poster submission), without limitation, to reproduce, make derivatives, edit, modify, translate, distribute, transmit, publish, license and broadcast the video submission worldwide, by any means. Any and all such permissions, licenses, clearances, releases, waivers of moral rights and approvals must be attached to the submission. 

Submissions from contestants who have previously participating in the Y4Y Contest (but did not win a monetary prize) are permitted. However, the submission must be unique from the previous submission and bare as little resemblance as possible to their previous work. The Contest Organizer reserves the right to deem a submission unoriginal from returning contestants.


Content restrictions:

Submissions must not contain, illustrate, comment or target, without exception, any of the following:

-    Obscenities, offensive or sexually explicit language, nudity, hurtful content, or equally unacceptable language or content; 
-    Ensure that minors (below 18) are not shown in your submission.
-    Language or content that is malicious, threatening, offensive, degrading, defamatory, racist, insulting, hateful, violent or obscene, acts of explicit violence or discriminatory language or content;
-    Any individual, which the participant or the people who agreed to be included, in accordance with the official rules, who is identifiable in any way;
-    Any reference to personal information concerning other people, including their names or information that could be used to identify or locate another person or otherwise considered as an infringement of privacy of another person;
-    Content that encourages violence, intimidation or illegal behaviour, or tolerating these behaviours, or encouraging prejudices, hatred or prejudices towards a group or a person, or encouraging discrimination or exploitation based on race, gender, religion, disability or age;    
-    Any illegal claims or content;
-    Defamation, libel or slander;
-    Dangerous stunts;
-    The use of any type of real weapons; 
-    Drug use;
-    Any other content deemed offensive by Y4Y or the jury, at their sole discretion. 
-    Y4Y reserves the right to determine, at its sole discretion, if the content of a submission contravenes the video-related requirements. 

Indemnity and limitations of liability:

Your personal safety and that of your actors, camera crew and other individuals involved in the making of the video or poster must be maintained. Do not put anyone at risk during the making of the video or poster. If you show dangerous tasks in your video or video, you must follow all safety regulations and take all necessary precautions to prevent any injuries. Each participant accepts to defend, indemnify and save harmless from the Y4Y, its employees, officers, directors and agents as well as the jury from any and all lawsuits, claims, losses, injuries, death, damages and expenses, including any reasonable legal costs arising out of the participant’s video or in connection with the latter in any way, and to release the Y4Y, its employees, officers, directors and agents as well as the jury from any liability in connection with the Contest (including the awarding of a prize). 


Grant of rights:


By participating in the contest and by submitting a video, each participant: 

-    Grants the Youth for Youth Education Program an irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free and perpetual license and right (including the right to sub-license) to copy, modify, reproduce, broadcast, display, publish, show in public, expose, encode, stock, adapt, transmit and use or present, in whole or in part, the video or poster through any current or future means of communication (including any future promotional or educational project and school presentations ), and including, but not limited to, the perpetual distribution over the Internet starting on the date of participation, including, but not limited to, the administration and promotion of the contest;
-    Waives, in favour of the Y4Y, all intellectual property rights, public image and privacy rights, moral rights or any other right recognized by the law that he/she may have acquired for the video or its features, if applicable, and which may prohibit the Y4Y from using the video or poster;
-    Waives and releases the Y4Y, its employees, officers, directors and agents as well as the jury of any claim based on public image rights, defamation, invasion of privacy, copyright, trademark infringement or any other legal action concerning the video intellectual property rights. 
-    The participant grants these rights, free of charge, to the Y4Y and accepts that no other permission or further copyright payment to the participant or other party be required.
Evaluation
A panel of Contest Organizer’s and Youth Jury members (aged 15 – 18) are responsible for viewing and evaluating the submissions received for the Youth 4 Youth Digital Media Contest. Based on their evaluations, the Top 5 Submissions will be shortlisted and posted online for the public vote.
 
The public vote is a week-long period where videos and posters are posted online and members of the public are able to vote for their favourite video! To select Top 3 Submissions, a score is created for each contestant that is comprised of 25% public vote score and 75% youth jury panel score. The Top 3 Submissions will then move on to the Youth Impact Survey round. 


During the Youth Impact Survey, the Top 3 poster and video submission will be shown to high school aged youth across Ontario. Based on the students’ evaluations, the Top 3 poster and video submissions will be placed in first, second and third place. The prizes will then be presented at the Y4Y Award Ceremony in June. 

2020 Video Winners

1st Place: Arshad Mohamed, Akram Hussain, Rohan Ali, and Uzair Shuaib (StartBad Studios)

Longtime friends, Arshad, Akram, Rohan, and Uzair grew up in the GTA and have been making films for as long as they can remember. While these films started as a bonding experience between friends, the four recently realized their videos were of high enough quality that they could form a business around their skills. This led the four to form StartBAD studios where they create narrative, commercial, and documentary works.

2nd Place: Alexander Han, Paul Persic, and Liam Leone (Just2DPs)

Friends from high school, Alex, Paul and Liam, shared a passion for the art of film. While their post-secondary pursuits may have separated them as Alex went to study psychology at Wilfred Laurier, Paul pursued his passion for Film Production at Ryerson, and Liam refined his acting talents at the Toronto Film School. Now that all three have finished up their education Alex and Paul have teamed up to form, Just2DPs, a Toronto based production company, with Liam as their go to talent in front of the camera.

3rd Place: Danny McInnis

An Ottawa native, Danny has always been passionate about design. It is a passion that led him to study Mechanical Engineering at the University of Toronto on a Schulich Leaders Scholarship. While there he developed an interest in product design and prides himself on his ability to expertly balance technical functionality with aesthetics. This passion for design is also what attracted him to pursue both film and graphic design, as he found them to be the perfect creative release from his more academic pursuits. While filmmaking may have started as a hobby Danny has found great success shooting wedding videos and commercials for local businesses.

2020 Posters Winners

1st Place: Inha Lee

Poster for Gambling Awareness

Born in South Korea, Inha has always been passionate about graphic design, and filmmaking. She finds both fields the perfect way to express herself creatively and it is this passion that led her to study at Seneca College in Toronto. While at Seneca her passion for both graphic design and filmmaking continued to grow and she continued to refine her talent, which is reflected in the fact that she is the only participant in the contest to create both a poster and video that finished in the Top 5.

2nd Place: Kamal Ismail

Poster for Gambling Awareness

A Toronto resident, Kamal is a Film Studies student at Ryerson University. A passionate storyteller from a very young age, Kamal found the medium of film to be a natural fit for the stories he wanted to tell. His excitement for storytelling led him to become both a vlogger and a youtuber, where he creates content that documents his travels and highlights his latest commercial, music video, or narrative storytelling endeavor.

3rd Place: Colton Leonard

Poster for Gambling Awareness

Currently residing in Kingston, Colton is a student at St. Lawrence College studying Advertising and Marketing. While a student, Colton founder CLC Media, a digital media agency that assists its clients in business development, event planning, and SEO. In addition to these offerings Colton also spearheaded CLC Media’s videography and photography services, where he personally created well received advertisements for a number of local businesses.

2019 Winners

1st Place: Lucas Watts

Lucas grew up in Brantford, Ontario and attended the University of Ottawa for philosophy and psychology. While there, Lucas developed an interest in both photography and videography. Now, Lucas is always looking for opportunities to further pursue his photography and videography interests. The Youth 4 Youth Digital Media Contest was an excellent opportunity to do exactly that! Lucas enjoyed participating in the contest and is looking forward to future opportunities in this field.

2nd Place: Huron St. Creative

Charlotte Durnford-Dionne is a recent graduate from the Ontario College of Art and Design, where she studied Advertising. Charlotte is originally from Montreal. Although Charlotte does not have extensive experience creating films, she loves learning new things and was eager to take on the challenge of the Y4Y Contest. In the future, Charlotte hopes to have a career where she can be wildly creative and bring joy to her community. Hailey Asquin is also a recent graduate from the Ontario College of Art and Design, where she studied graphic design. Hailey taught herself videography, as a lot of communication is now done through video. After graduation, Hailey strives to work in politics or for advocacy groups where she will use visual communication as a way to communicate public policy issues.

3rd Place: Sarah & Brian

Sarah Wilson is from London, Ontario and works as a freelance videographer. Sarah also works at Best Buy as a Certified Sales Specialist, where she specializes in camera sales. In the fall of 2019, Sarah will be continuing her education at Fanshawe College for TV Broadcasting and Film Production. In the future, Sarah hopes to continue making an impact on the filmmaking community with her work and wants to make the male-dominated industry of filmmaking a place where woman can feel strong and powerful. Participating in the Youth 4 youth Digital Media Contest was another challenging, but rewarding filmmaking experience where her team had the opportunity to learn and share information that is relevant to many people these days, yet often overlook. She hopes her submission will help to educate and empower youth across Ontario!

Brian Mestdagh is also from London, Ontario and is currently enrolled in Police Foundations at Fanshawe College. Brian also works at Henry’s Camera Store as a Sony Master and Sales Specialist. Brian’s interest in film began in high school by accident, when he was placed in a film class because his desired course was full. This film class inspired a passion and creativity for film making that Brian has been developing over the past six years. Brian has been able to grow his passion of photography and make meaningful connections with others by working events such as the Juno Awards. Although Brian was hesitant at first about participating in the Y4Y Contest, Brian enjoyed the experience as he learned new design techniques and gained meaningful knowledge on non-traditional gambling forms that he has been able to share with others throughout the process.

2018 Winners

1st Place: Amir Tavassoly

Amir Tavassoly is a content creator on YouTube. He uses his passion for content creation in order to tell a story and raise awareness on social issues. On YouTube he is most famous for creating comedic videos and uniting people of different backgrounds and cultures through entertainment.

2nd Place: David Ward

David Ward is a social work student with an interest in youth mental health. Video work and social change are passions he aims to pursue in his career.

3rd Place: Lael Nadua & Rustom Travilla

Lael Nadua and Rustom Trayvilla aspire to influence and inspire people through the art of storytelling and filmmaking. They are founders of Live Forever films, their own wedding filmmaking company.

People on a conference call

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