Haruna. CHeck the videos out.

 

June 21, 2010

 

The U.S. Department of State and the Democracy is… partnership announce the six winning videos of this year’s Democracy Video Challenge, a worldwide online initiative that engages people in a global conversation on democracy.

Hundreds of thousands of engaged citizens from all corners of the globe participated in the online voting on YouTube (www.youtube.com/democracychallenge) to select the winners from among the 18 finalist videos during the online voting period May 15-June 15, 2010. Six winning videos, representing each of the world’s six geographic regions, earned the filmmakers an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C., Hollywood and New York City in September. Since its launch two years ago, more than 1,600 people from more than 110 countries have submitted entries and spurred the online engagement of over 2.5 million people.

The six regional Democracy Video Challenge winners for 2010 are:

· Africa - Yared Shumete from Ethiopia: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqWFb852eDk
· East Asia and the Pacific - Adhyatmika from Indonesia: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGIVYm-v3kM
· Europe - Joel Marsden from Spain: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rK2WPtzAnk
· Near East - Farbad Khoshtinat from Iran: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI6oOgG-HRg
· South Central Asia - Anup Poudel from Nepal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52mmgGmuMmo
· Western Hemisphere - Juan Pablo Patiño Arévalo from Colombia: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVW-9wGXrrw

The Department established the Democracy is… initiative, a unique public-private partnership, to engage people around the world in a global conversation on democracy. The initiative’s goal is to empower a global audience to share views on democracy by asking people to complete the phrase “Democracy is….” The initiative includes video, Twitter, and photo contests; social media communities on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms; and traditional public diplomacy activities conducted at conferences, as well as at cultural and other events.