Shreyosi Chakraborty
A 15-year-old student from Bengaluru, Samvita Amladi was among the top 25 winners at The New York Times Learning Network. The contest christened The Coming of Age in 2021 Contest received a whooping 4000+ multimedia submissions from around the world. Amladi is a student of the Stonehill International School in Bengaluru, who aced the multimedia contest held for teenagers. This was the second edition of the competition, which gave students an international platform to showcase their creativity while sharing their experiences of being a teenager amidst a global health crisis.
The contest featured students’ experiences of the pandemic and how it changed their generation which was either penned down or created in the form of videos, comics, poems, paintings, photos, songs, games, and GIFs.
Last year, the contest was only open to teenagers in the United States, but propelled by thumping success this year students from other countries were welcomed as well. Among the participants, 25 winners, 25 runners-up and 46 honourable mentions were recognized. Amladi’s poem titled The Roarin’ 20s? forays into the trivial instances from daily life, online schooling and experiences that the millennials took for granted before the pandemic.
“We hear from young people around the world every day, and have watched as nearly two years of pandemic isolation and disruption have intensified all the other stresses this generation is facing,” said The New York Times Learning Network.
Sharing her thoughts, Samvita said, “I’ve realised that being a teenager in 2021 means being political because whether you like it or not, your actions today dictate how you and other social groups will thrive & interact for generations to come. The year 2021 though marred by a global Pandemic gave us a chance to understand and realise our full potential as change makers in a society that was inherently made to ‘not budge.’”
To read the full poem, click on: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/learning/coming-of-age-in-2021-a-multimedia-contest-for-teenagers.html
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