SHOW US YOUR NASHVILLE

Kidizenship Contest #6: SHOW US YOUR NASHVILLE!

What positive changes do you want to see in our city?

All across Nashville, yards are filled with signs promoting the names of candidates running for office – people with big ideas for the future of our city. In the coming weeks, voters will choose our new mayor and elect members of the Metro Council, which creates local policies and provides essential urban services. Elections are an important way for civic leaders to share their vision for progress. 

But what is the future you see? What is one positive change you would make in Nashville if the voters put you in charge? 

Maybe you envision a state-of-the-art public transit system. Maybe you see a new approach to relief for food insecure and unhoused Nashvillians. Maybe you have a plan to improve safety at your school. Maybe you see ways to make Nashville carbon neutral or hopeful approaches to climate resilience. Maybe you see green roofs, community gardens and civic art projects, expanded city parks, or stronger municipal recycling and composting programs.

We want to know what young Nashvillians imagine for our city!

Kidizenship and Vanderbilt University’s Project On Unity and American Democracy have launched a contest to recognize and celebrate the voices and vision of Nashville’s rising generation.  

This city has a deep history of youth-led civic action. In the 1960s, students like John Lewis and Diane Nash used Nashville as their training ground for the sit-ins and other nonviolent direct action that would soon spread across the South. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said, “I came to Nashville not to bring inspiration, but to gain inspiration from the great movement that has taken place in this community." 

And there are plenty of examples of how students continue to chart the path of this city: In June 2020, following the killing of George Floyd, six Nashville teens lead tens of thousands of people on a peaceful march to protest police brutality.

In April 2023, one week after a mass shooter took the lives of three children and three adults at the Covenant School, thousands of students poured out of high schools and college campuses and gathered at the State Capitol with signs and messages of peaceful protest. 

Young artists have helped create murals and other powerful forms of civic art throughout the city. Nashville’s Youth Poet Laureates have composed anthems and spoken-word poetry that brings voice to the power of civic engagement. There are also kids working behind the scenes, like Katie Rush, the Hume Fogg student who proposed a bill in the TN General Assembly that would increase the youth vote. And Clara Thorsen, the Hillsboro High School student who, at age 16, became one of the city’s youngest poll workers in the recent mayoral election. 

The point is this: You may be too young to vote, but your voice and your ideas are powerful. That’s where this contest comes in. We want you to dream big ideas about how to improve our city and express them in an image and with a brief description. Consider the biggest challenges and opportunities this city faces and how you would solve or fulfill them. Settle on the solution you think could have the greatest impact and bring it to life. 

Submit a visual representation of your idea using a range of 2-D media–drawing, painting, computer graphics, collaging, or photography–along with a brief description of 100-500 words explaining your idea and how it will affect our city.  NOTE: You certainly do not have to be a fine artist to enter! You may use computer graphic programs like Canva—more on those below—or crayons. But we ask that you not use any AI image generators, such as DALL-E 2.

Finalists will be shared on our social media channels on September 24, 2023, and will present their submissions at Nashville’s public art festival, Artville, on September 30, 2023, where winners will be announced.

And don’t forget: There are prizes, generously provided by Artville! First-place winners in each age group will receive $1000, second-place winners will receive $750, and third-place winners will receive $500. 

Kidizenship is a non-partisan media platform for kids ages 8-18 that reaches beyond the classroom to merge civics education with creative self-expression and community action. Kidizenship publishes the youth civic magazine WATCH US RISE. Our premise is simple: Engaged kids become citizens who VOTE!

We can’t wait to celebrate the future you see.

Contest Rules

Please read these rules (the Rules) before submitting your entry to Kidizenship’s Contest (the Contest). By participating in the Contest, you understand, acknowledge and unconditionally agree to abide by the following Rules:

CONTESTANT ELIGIBILITY

• The Contest is open to students who reside in Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County.

• Contestants must be between the ages of 8 and 18 years. Contestants under 18 years of age require the permission of a parent or guardian.

• Employees of Kidizenship and its subsidiaries and affiliates and their immediate family members (spouse, parent, child, sibling and their respective spouses) or persons living in the same households of such employees, whether or not related, are not eligible.

• No purchase or payment of any kind is necessary to enter or win the Contest.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

• The Contest is open for submissions via email only, sent to info@kidizenship.com.

• Submissions will not be accepted after 11:59 PM Central Time on September, 22, 2023.

• Images submitted must be no more than 2000 pixels on each side, and should be no larger than 5MB. They must be in JPEG format.

• You may submit individually or with one partner. YOUR PARTNER MUST BE IN THE SAME AGE CATEGORY AS YOU ARE (8-12 OR 13-18); COLLABORATORS WILL SHARE PRIZE MONEY.

• You may submit up to three entries (INDIVIDUALLY OR WITH A PARTNER); each submission must be sent individually via email to info@kidizenship.com. No contestant is eligible to win more than one prize, even if she submits multiple entries.

• You must provide a short essay of 100-500 words describing your idea.

• You may use computer graphic programs such as Canva, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Paintshop Pro, Sketch, CorelDraw, Creative Cloud Express, and Sumo Paint. You may not use any AI image generators such as DALL-E 2 (we also do not allow the AI tools available in Photoshop and Canva). 

• Submissions will be screened for the use of AI image generators, and any produced with these tools will be disqualified.

• Any submission that is hateful, discriminatory, or advocates violence is strictly prohibited and will be disqualified. Kidizenship reserves the right to assess and disqualify any submitted photo at its discretion.

•  Contestants who submit any such photos may be permanently banned, subject to Kidizenship’s discretion, from participating in any future contests.

  
  

THE JUDGING

•  Kidizenship shall appoint a panel of four judges for the Contest who are local civic leaders. 

• The judging panel shall assess and determine the winning submissions. The results and the winners will be announced on social media channels and the website.

•  The decisions of Kidizenship’s judging panel will be final and binding on all contestants.

  
  

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

•  Kidizenship respects artists’ copyrights and copyrights shall remain vested with the contestant.

• Winning contestants grant Kidizenship a non-exclusive license to promote each submission in all media, including, but not limited to, the social media accounts of Kidizenship, Contest Judges and Partners and on the organization’s websites (Kidizenship.com and WatchUsRise.com) by entering the Contest. Kidizenship may also display the submissions at educational exhibitions organized by Kidizenship and in materials in print and online promoting Kidizenship and future youth civics contests. Kidizenship may sub-license the winning submissions to the press for reproduction in connection with the Contest. Winning submissions may be published on the platforms and social media channels of Kidizenship’s partners (eg. Artville.org, Vanderbilt.edu and YMCA.org).

• Kidizenship will not publish any submitted image on any social media channel or any other media of any kind, including but not limited to broadcast and print, without the contestant’s consent. Consent shall be presumed by the contestant’s acceptance of a $50 licensing fee for any image that is published by Kidizenship on its websites (kidizenship.com and watchusrise.com) and/or the websites of its partners.

• Submitted images must be original, created and/or taken by the contestant. They must not contain any materials owned or controlled by a third party for which you have not obtained a license and must not infringe on the copyright, trademark, moral rights, rights of privacy/publicity or intellectual property rights of any person or entity.

• The contestant will be credited wherever their submission is used.

We are Kidizenship, and we want to hear what you have to say. Enter our contests and share them with your teachers, friends and neighbors. Want to learn more? Follow us on Instagram , Twitter and Facebook.