Students seek vote to win Ottawa trip
Video entered in national contest focuses on missing and murdered aboriginal women
Evan Kiyoshi French
Northern News Services
Thursday, June 18, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Shayla Huynh, 12, is hoping to win votes that will help she and her 11-year-old fellow filmmaker Lucia Nakayko win a trip to Ottawa. The Mildred Hall School students have entered a video they made about their heritage fair project on missing and murdered aboriginal women in the 2015 Young Citizens contest.
Shayla Huynh, 12, looks at the video she and Lucia Nakayko,11, made about murdered and missing aboriginal women. The pair of Mildred Hall School students entered their video in a national contest. - Evan Kiyoshi French/NNSL photo
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Huynh said she and Nakayko decided on their subject after visiting the Walking With Our Sisters exhibit displayed at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre earlier this year.
"I felt bad for all the women and girls," she said, sitting at a desk in the school on Tuesday. "There were so many of them."
She said the team began working on their project in March.
"It took quite a while," she said. "We had to pull lots of information."
When the research was completed Nakayko worked to put together a bristol-board presentation while Huynh handled the editing. She said they decided to use their material in their video for the contest, and Nakayko's father, Deneze Nakayko, served as their camera operator.
The pair's teacher, Deb Horen, said the students entered their initial bristol-board project in the city's Heritage Fair. The project did well, so it was taken to the territorial competition in Tulita.
"Then they were selected to participate in the Young Citizens (competition) so they created the video," she said.
Contestants' videos are posted online as part of the contest. Voting closes on July 5 and the votes earned will count for 50 per cent of the scoring, according to the contest website. The other 50 per cent will be awarded by a panel of judges.
Two students from each province and territory will be flown to Ottawa in the fall, where they'll attend the Canada's History Youth Forum.
The contest and forum are organized by the national non-profit Canada's History Society, a national charity devoted to promoting public history.
