(This article is reproduced from India Education Review)

Adobe Youth Voices (AYV), the signature global philanthropic initiative by Adobe Foundation, has announced the completion of its fifth successful year of celebrating young talent and creativity in India. Adobe Youth Voices provides an opportunity for underserved middle and high school youth to communicate their concerns, aspirations, and vision using digital media.

The AYV programme, which is implemented by American Indian Foundation, runs across 43 schools in India. Seeing the encouraging response and far-reaching impact of the program, Adobe also announced the extension of AYV program for next five years till 2016.

Over 150,000 youth and 7,000 educators have been empowered globally through AYV initiative in its first five years. The program now aims to reach 1,000,000 youth and 50,000 educators around the world by 2016. In India, over 4,000 students have been impacted through this program and Adobe expects to expand this reach to cover over 8,500 youth and 400+ educators in the course of next five years.

Adobe also announced setting up of scholarships worth Rs 125,000 for meritorious and needy AYV students. The scholarships which will be provided to AYV students in Delhi and Bangalore is meant to provide financial support for those pursuing multimedia/DTP courses, general media courses and courses in mass communication & electronic media.

“Embedding digital creativity in education has been a key objective for Adobe Youth Voices, Adobe’s flagship CSR program and it gives us immense pleasure to get together every year and celebrate creativity. It is indeed a proud moment for all those who have been involved in AYV as we announce not only the successful completion of the first five years of this program but also announce its extension for next five years,” said Tridib Roy Chowdhury, Senior Director – Products, Adobe Systems.

“Adobe has been a great partner in taking the AYV program to the next level. The kind of impact American India Foundation and Adobe have made in terms of reaching out to the youth and an educator has been truly encouraging. Through AYV, youth are leveraging digital media for social change and highlighting the issues that are important to them and their communities. We hope to continue our efforts in this direction with more zeal and anticipation to touch the lives of the community as a whole,” J Sundara Krishnan, Director, American India Foundation.

This year three AYV Schools have also been selected to represent India during the Global AYV Summit 2011 being held in US in August. These are Rani Dutta Arya Vidyalaya in Delhi and Christel House and APSA (Association for Promoting Social Action) in Bangalore. One educator and two students from each of the three schools will showcase their talent and improve their skills at the summit at Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California, US from 2nd - 7th August, 2011.

One of the five films submitted by the Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) schools at the 16th All India Children’s Educational Audio Video Festival as part of NCERT’s Golden Jubilee Festival 2011, has been awarded the Best Puppetry Video. The immensely creative and inspiring video ‘Save Petrol’ made by students of Jamia Middle School (Delhi) was given the award in the Puppetry category. The winning movie can be viewed at:

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adobe-youth-voices/save-petrol/

Adobe also felicitated the India winners of the APAC School Innovation Awards during its AYV five-year anniversary celebration. Brother duo Suyash Gupta and Vaibhav Gupta became first Indians to have a winning entry in Adobe Asia Pacific School Innovation Award 2010. They were honored with this award for designing a website on “Incredible India”

http://www.youtube.co/watch?v=qizJiUyjLIfeature=player_embedded#at=12

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