Elections BC

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 9, 2009

VICTORIA -    The Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, the Honourable Bill Barisoff, and the Chief Electoral Officer, Harry Neufeld have named Sophia Chen and fellow Burnaby North Secondary School students, Aleem Dhanji, Kate Gao and Javed Siddoo as the winners of the “Democracy on Location” video contest for their video “Why Should Youth Care About Democracy?“  

The four students will be traveling to Victoria to be interviewed for a television audience, learn about parliamentary democracy, tour the Parliament buildings and learn about professional video production and broadcasting.  The winning video will be featured on the Legislative Assembly’s website (www.leg.bc.ca/index.htm) and the Elections BC website (www.elections.bc.ca). 

The “Democracy on Location” video contest has been a joint initiative between the Legislative Assembly of B.C. and Elections BC.  It was launched on September 15, 2009 in recognition and celebration of the second annual United Nations International Day of Democracy.  

To encourage youth participation and engagement in democracy, British Columbia’s middle and high school students were asked to create a short video about democracy in their lives at school, home or with their friends.  Student videos were to encourage youth participation in democracy and illustrate the values and principles of democracy. 

The contest ran from September 15 to November 15, 2009 and 10 submissions were received by the deadline.  All of the contest submissions can be viewed on the Elections BC Facebook page at www.facebook.com/pages/Elections-BC/67197771286. 

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Contact:
Don Main
Communications Planning Officer
Elections BC
Phone:  250-387-1709
Email:  Don.Main@elections.bc.ca
Website:  www.elections.bc.ca 

Elections BC is a non-partisan Office of the Legislature responsible for the administration of the Election Act, Recall and Initiative Act, and conduct of referenda under the Referendum Act.