‘Ōlelo Statewide Video Competition Finalists Announced

Two student-produced videos from Hilo Intermediate school have been selected as finalists in the 14th Annual ‘Ōlelo Youth Xchange Statewide Student Video Competition presented by Sony.

“Undersage Smoking” entered in the category of news, and “Stop Animal Testing,” entered as a mini documentary, were each produced by students at Hilo Intermediate. Finalists were selected from 89 schools across the state spanning elementary, middle and high school level students. 

The winners will be publicly announced on Thursday, April 27, at the Youth Exchange Awards Gala at the Sheraton Waikiki. The gala will be broadcast live on Channel 55 beginning at 10:30 a.m., and streamed live at www.olelo/55. Viewers can also see the event after it airs on youtube and on olelo.org/olelonet.

Last April, over 900 educators, student-producers and guests from across the state celebrated the finalist videos at the 2016 ‘Ōlelo Youth Xchange awards banquet.

The ‘Ōlelo Youth Xchange was created to give local youth a medium to tell stories that matter to them in a variety of video formats.

This year’s Youth Xchange Video Competition included 18 categories: animation, mini-documentary, news, public service announcement, short, Expert and Junior Expert; and the sponsored categories of Clean Energy Future, Creating Peace, Fight the Bite, Forest Health Hawai‘i, Mā̄lama Honua, Start Living Healthy, Storm Water Hero, Taking Assessments Seriously, The Value of Water, Traffic Safety and Vote to Rise.