{"id":146922,"date":"2023-03-29T13:31:28","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T17:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=146922"},"modified":"2023-03-29T13:31:28","modified_gmt":"2023-03-29T17:31:28","slug":"the-townships-sun-wraps-up-townships-young-voices-project-with-special-awards-ceremony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/the-townships-sun-wraps-up-townships-young-voices-project-with-special-awards-ceremony\/","title":{"rendered":"The Townships Sun wraps up Townships Young Voices project with special awards ceremony"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Townships Sun<\/i>, a non-profit community magazine that serves the English-speaking community of the Eastern Townships, <\/i>officially wrapped up its new Townships Young Voices project with an awards ceremony held on March 26.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Townships Young Voices project was about encouraging\u00a0 <\/span>youth between 12 and 29 years old to write poetry, fiction, non-fiction, or to take photographs, or create a piece of artwork to be published in The Townships Sun <\/i>and to win awards.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The project was a collaboration between The Townships Sun, <\/i>the Write Here, Write Now! Program of the Bishop's University Lifelong Learning Academy, who organized workshops to give participants some tips on writing, art, and photography, and the Townshippers\u2019 Association, who organized the awards ceremony and provided financial support. The Townshippers\u2019 Research & Cultural Foundation and the Rotary Club of the Boundary in Stanstead also allocated financial support for the project.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

More than 100 people attended last weekend\u2019s ceremony, either in-person or by Zoom, and a total of 18 awards were granted to participants. First prize winners received $100, second prize winners received $50 each, and third prize winners is publication only. All the winning works will be published in the Townships Sun<\/em> over the next year, which is marking its 50th year of publication. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt first we didn\u2019t really know how many people would apply and as usual people always apply at the very last minute. We ended up with almost 50 entries, which is very exciting,\u201d said Marie Moliner, assistant editor for the Townships Sun <\/i>and leader of the Townships Young Voices project.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Moliner described the project as \u201ca community labor of love.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is really the work of a lot of volunteers. I didn\u2019t add up the hours, but I am sure we have close to 2,000 hours of volunteer work overall to get us here. It really was a community labor of love and that was pretty obvious in the room where we had over 100 people show up, families and children, poets and authors, and playwrights in the Eastern Townships. It was wonderful,\u201d she mentioned.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Out of the five categories that participants could choose from, Moliner said that poetry was the most popular. The original age range was between 12 and 29 years old, but children as young as 11 were submitting pieces of work.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t know where people would land. I assumed that photography would be the one that would be the biggest because everyone has a phone and you can take a good picture with your camera. It was actually poetry that had the most submissions and the poetry submissions were just beautiful, poets as young as 11 right up to older poets,\u201d highlighted Moliner.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the chosen winners, 18 year-old Bishop\u2019s University student Solomia Salameh, said that it was fun to participate in the project because participants had a range of categories to choose from.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s sort of what the genesis was, that you can pick any creative passion that you have and just go with it,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Salameh originally thought she was going to submit a piece of poetry, but that quickly changed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI decided to go with the poetry category since I write a lot and decided why not give it a shot? But the photography category was a spontaneous decision. It\u2019s funny that that was the one I ended up winning somehow,\u201d she mentioned.<\/p>\n

Her photograph captured the moon reflecting off the water near a park in Lennoxville.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was maybe a few months after living here in Sherbrooke for the first time, I did not live in Canada before that. I liked it because Canada has a lot of natural spots in the area that we take for granted a lot of the time. Essentially, what photography is all about is capturing the smallest moments that we tend to miss and to keep that with you in the form of a photograph,\u201d noted Salameh.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Salameh said that seeing younger children win awards at last weekend\u2019s ceremony reminded her of her younger self.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt reminded me of myself when I was younger and just imagining your younger self with your immense creative potential. As children, we don\u2019t know the limits to our realities so we really are most creative as children. To have that recognized, as a child, already puts a seed in their mind that they could do great things growing up,\u201d she emphasized. \u201cThat\u2019s why I messaged Marie afterwards to tell her that her work is invaluable in raising the next generation of artists, photographers, writers, because you\u2019re encouraging them to do more than what they think they could have done.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important for adults too, added Salameh.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs young adults, we tend to get lost in work and studies, and a lot of the time we think that we should repress our creative potential and creative energy because we have too much on our plates already. (\u2026) This project really pushed me to get back into writing poems and it forced me to get this submitted by the deadline. It puts that inspiration back into your heart, no matter if you\u2019re a child or an adult,\u201d she expressed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Listen to the full interview below:<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Townships Sun, a non-profit community magazine that serves the English-speaking community of the Eastern Townships, officially wrapped up its new Townships Young Voices project with an awards ceremony held on March 26.\u00a0 The Townships Young Voices project was about encouraging\u00a0 youth between 12 and 29 years old to write poetry, fiction, non-fiction, or to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":146926,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,219,221],"tags":[23927,6634,1504,10696,24784,24782,6225,5928,1989,24783,4348,10695,5816,487],"radio":[246],"origine":[274,259,260],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146922"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146922"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146933,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146922\/revisions\/146933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146922"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=146922"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=146922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}