Africa Soft Power Project (ASP) 2023 Climate Change Photo Essay Prize

Boadi — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 14:03:28 +0000

The first annual Climate Change Photo Essay Prize is open for entries until 30th April 2023. The prize is open to young people aged 18 to 30 from Africa and its diaspora. Entrants do not need to be professional photographers or artists — all are encouraged to enter.

Climate change is one of the most important issues of our time, and the objective behind the prize is to encourage young people to engage with the issue in their local communities. For that reason, we are thrilled to launch the prize with the theme: Climate change and your community. Entrants are asked to submit a photo essay of three to five photographs that tell a cohesive story and address the theme.

The list of judges will be released soon. The judges seek entries that best depict the theme and convey a compelling story/message and winning entries will be announced at the Africa Soft Power Summit in Kigali in May 2023.

The Climate Change Photo Essay Prize is run by Africa Soft Power (ASP), in association with African Women Board (AWB) as part of the ‘Road to 100 Million Climate Soldiers in Africa’ campaign. The campaign is focused on climate education, which we view as the first step in securing climate solutions.

Our goal is to educate and empower 100 million young Africans in the fight against climate change, which we will measure through the reach of each of the campaign’s projects.

About us

First founded in 2020, our goal at ASP is a simple one: to leverage the awesome (soft) power of the continent’s creative and cultural industries to propel economic growth at home, internationally, and by building bridges with wider communities around the world.

After working for many years in media tech, including as the MD of Spinlet, which at the time was Africa’s largest homegrown music streaming app, I began to realise the huge potential that these sectors had to offer, if only they could attract the right levels of engagement – and investment.

Today, we live in a world where African culture has gone mainstream, as exemplified earlier this year when Burna Boy had a packed-out Madison Square Garden eating out the palm of his hand!

We want to celebrate that success, but also build on it, bringing more African creative and cultural pursuits into the mainstream, and helping to fuel the digital and knowledge economies of tomorrow on a global level.

A key part of ASP’s initial two year programme has been to establish May as ‘Africa Month’. There are already celebrations like Black History Month in February in the US, or October in the UK, and that’s great because they champion the diaspora community.

But when we are thinking in terms of global blackness, the continent of Africa still gets left behind, and so we seek to paint a modern, accurate picture of what the continent is about today – and that cultural narrative of course, is best told by our creative industries!

Benefits

Winners will have their work shown at a curated exhibition held later this year.

Requirements

Entrants must be aged 18 to 30 on the closing date. You do not need to be a professional photographer to participate in this contest.
Photo content must be appropriate to the theme.
Each photo essay submitted is to consist of three (minimum) to five (maximum) images.
We suggest only those images required to tell the story are included in the submission.
Unnecessary images may reduce the overall impact of the photo essay.
The photos must be yours. Do not use other people’s photos or plagiarize.
Entries will be judged on the basis of effectiveness in conveying the story through the narrative composition, technique, content, and originality of well-edited images.

How to Apply

Photos should be submitted to ASP via emailing [email protected] with the subject CLIMATE CHANGE PHOTO ESSAY PRIZE and your name.
Your email body should only include the title of your photo essay and the photo selections. Please note that judges will not read descriptions or explanations of your work.
Please make sure you are certain of your photo selections. Once you submit your photos, you cannot change or edit your submission.
Photos must be at least 1200px on the longest side and at least 72dpi – only digital images will be accepted. (Please retain full-size versions of the images in your library as we may require them if your photo essay is picked as a winner)
JPG/JPEG image files must be no larger than 2MB each.
No watermarking or digital frames or borders

Application Deadline

April 30, 2023

visit ASP website for more.