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S T O R I E S

Can you imagine a story that starts today – coming out of the pandemic and all the problems we know about Climate Change, US-Russian-China + Middle East tensions, armies shooting unarmed civilians on the streets of Myanmar and Syria, policemen casually killing black people in the USA – can you think of a story that could possibly lead us. 40-50 years hence, to a peaceful, clean, sustainable world in which we all have a great future and no one is left behind?

Hard, eh?

That’s why we’re inviting all of you – children of any age,  professional writers, students on creative writing courses, theatre people, writing groups – anyone and EVERYONE – to sit back, relax and IMAGINE – a plausible story for how we can get out of this mess.  We think – and because your story is going to be featured in the UN’s Birthday Festival  –  we’d like your story to feature the UN some where in it?  But that’s not mandatory: maybe you think the UN is the problem – in which case, we’d welcome your ideas for how it might be improved.

The only thing that we insist upon is that you follow the Peace Child structure: you story must start in the “Future we Want” circa 2060 / 2070. We want you to start by telling us about that world that you want to pass on to your children and grand-children. What does it look like? What does it feel like to live there?  What does it smell like?  What are its dominant features?  Paint a picture for us – and make us want to get there as badly as you do!

Then back-cast to today – and tell us the story of what you, and your generation, are going to do with your lives to get us to that world?   That’s the story on which you will be judged:  it must be a plausible story: we’re not looking for fairy-stories or fantasy sci-fi adventures. It must be a story rooted in real-life experiences and conditions. And because there will be different language / national versions of the Festival, each country can tell its own story based on its own lived realities and challenges.

And – though it does NOT have to be written by a young person, it has to feature courageous, imaginative children at its heart – for the reason we are doing this is that my generation failed – spectacularly! – to bring to life the story that I wrote in 1981 imagining a clean, green world at peace by 2020!  That’s why Peace Child is offering a prize of £1,000 for every story we feature in the UN Day Festival every year – and we’ll feature 3 or 4 of them each year.

We’ll post a couple of sample stories on this web-page shortly – to give you an idea of what we’re looking for.
Meanwhile – get thinking!  And when you’re ready, click below to submit your story
By using this link to submit your song, you confirm you agree to our  Terms and Conditions outlined in the  Small Print (below)

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Small  Print

All songs, statements and stories are subject to the following, legally binding understanding.

  • All songs and statements must be the original work of a young person aged 8 to 20 years old;
  • Stories may be written and read by people of any age, and songs may be arranged, played and recorded by musicians, singers, engineers and videographers of any age.
  • Each song and statement must be between 2 & 5-minutes long;
  • Each song and statement must be supplied in text form in both the original language and English;
  • Each song must be recorded in MP4; .MOV; WMV; FLV; AVI; AVCHD; WebM;  MKV format;
  • Each song, statement and story remains the sole property of the young person who wrote it (“The Author”) and those to whom s/he gave a share of their rights for assistance with recording and/or arrangement;
  • Peace Child International (“The Producer”) reserves the right to broadcast the song in the context of the UN Day Festival itself, and promotion thereof, and for any non-commercial, educational purpose there-after;
  • The Producer encourages the Author to create and promote commercial, income-generating audio and visual recordings of their work and will make any material produced for the UN Day Festival freely available to the Author to assist them in that effort.
  • The Producer reserves the right to re-record any song, statement or story for the UN Day Festival if, in their opinion, the recording made by the Author does not do justice to the quality of the composition and lyric;
  • Submissions Format: Contributions can be in any language but must come with an English translation. All spoken word must be in video format; songs can be submitted as video or audio files, or as scores to be recorded by other artists – or by one of the Peace Child International house bands;
Responsibilities:
  • All partners must promote the Peace Child International Songs for Survival opportunity to their networks of young people and organisations, and support them to participate in whatever way they are able;
  • All partners must promote the Festival Programme in whatever media they have access to;
  • All partners must alert those in positions of power – in government and other sectors of society – to the Festival Programme and develop ways to support them first to watch it, and then to take action to partner with the youth on the delivery of the priority challenges and targets identified;
Privileges:
  • All partners may create their own versions of the Festival Programme to be distributed for non-commercial / educational use in territories where they operate;
  • All partners may put forward 4 x judges (2 over 40 / 2 under 40; 2 male / 2 female) to vote which songs are included in the international broadcast;
  • All partners will be listed with their logos and links to their websites on the Songs for Survival homepage which is designed to become the go-to site for students and teachers seeking up-to-the-minute data on the movement of key human, and planetary, survival indicators;
Schedule:
  • May 1 2021:                   Launch Event – Website open for Entries;
  • September 21 2021:        Deadline for Registration & Receipt of Completed Entries;
  • October 24 2021:            UN Day Festival – 30-minute 1st Year Proof of Concept Broadcast based on the

outline script which can be read here; also, we hope, that a pilot national version of the Festival will be broadcast in at least one country in 2021 – with many more nationally hosted versions to follow in subsequent years;